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(From 



HON. GEORGE W. GORDON, 

^at£ of Samaica. 

^nmn Photograph by tlu- LonAoa . t 



PEESONAI^ EECOLLECTIONS 



OF THE HONOURABLE 



GEORGE W. GORDOK 



J 



LATE OF JMIAICA. 



BY THE 

REV. DUNCAN FLETCHER, 

LATE OF THE LOXDOX MISSIO]!f AEY SOCIETY. 

Author of " The Geography and History of Jamaica," " The Slavery of 

Jamaica Freedom," &c., &c. 



LONDON : 

ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 

Dublin : J. ROBEE-TSOX, 3, GEAFTOX STREET. 

Glasgow: GEORGE GAI^LIE, 99, BUCHANAjST STREET. 

1867. 












\ 



^ 



.\^ 



t^" 



i'^^ 



IIECOMMENDATION BY MKS, GORDON 



Having perused several articles which my 
friend the Eev. D. Fletcher had published some 
time ago, on the life of my late lamented husband, 
it affords me a melancholy satisfaction to recom- 
mend the volume which he is now issuing. 

There are but few men living who knew my 
martyred husband better than Mr. Fletcher ; and 
I know of none so well furnished with proper 
materials for the " labour of love " which he has 
undertaken. 

I have sent him a good portrait of Mr. Gor- 
don, and supplied him, from time to time, with 
such information as he desired while engaged in 
writing his book, for which I sincerely wish a 
large circulation. 

M. GORDON. 

Regents Park, April, 1867. 



NOTE. 



The Author gratefully acknowledges Ms obli- 
gations to the Subscribers who so promptly en- 
couraged him when he proposed to publish the 
life of his lamented friend. 

In the course of a few days, after announcing 
his purpose, he was favoured with the following 
and many other names : — John Bright, Esq., M.P., 
four copies ; Benjamin Scott, Esq., E.E.A.S., 
Chamberlain of London, four ; the Hon. and Eev. 
Baptist "W. Noel, M.A., two ; George Foley, Esq., 
Barrister- at-law, Dublin/" eleven ; Peter Drum- 
mond, Esq., Stirling, six ; Alfred Keep, Esq., 
Birmingham, ten; P. P. Perry, Esq., Northamp- 
ton,-^ fifty; Mrs. G. W. Gordon, twelve. The 
original intention was to have published a 
small edition, but owing to the encouragement 
already received, arrangements have been made 
by which a much larger number is, now issued. 

D. FLETCHER. 

Moy, Ireland/1867. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 
INTRODUCTOKY CHAPTER. 

My Arrival in Jamaica, and first Interview with Mr. 
Gordon. 
Incidents of tlie Voyage — Tlie Ocean Scenery and 
Sounds — Preaching and Mutual Improvement Society 
on Board — First impressions on landing in Jamaica 
— The CUmate, Fruits, and Scenery of the Island, &c. 
— The first Sabbath I preached in Jamaica — My 
Feelings on the occasion — Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, &c., 
among my hearers — My first Impressions of Mr. 
Gordon, &c I 

CHAPTER II. 

Mr. Gordon's Parentage and Youth. 

Many great and good Men born in mean circum- 
stances — Parents who neglect their children — My 
acquaintance with Mr. Gordon's father — My conver- 
sation ^^ith him in Gaelic — Incidents of his life — 
Mr. Gordon's mother — His affection for her — The 
awful state of Jamaica when Mr. Gordon was born — 
Mr. Gordon as a Slave Boy — His early piety — How 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

he taught himself Eeading, Writing, Arithmetic, &c. 
How he obtained his Freedom — How he overcame 
all his early difficulties—Three important lessons to 
be learned from his Parentage and Youth .... 14 



CHAPTER III. 

Mr. Gordon's Mercantile Life. 

Hardships of Youth overruled for good in after-life 
— Mr. Gordon entering on business — Secret of his 
success — His business habits — Objects contemplated 
—The history of his sisters — How they were re- 
deemed from slavery — Mr. Gordon gave them a 
finished education — Their gratitude and attachment 
. to him- — Mr. Gordon's immense property— Why he 
purchased so many estates— Mr. Gordon's benevolent 
schemes for the emancipated people — How he was 
misunderstood and misrepresented as a man of busi- 
ness — Three important practical suggestions ... 26 

CHAPTER IV. 

Mr. Gordon's Matrimonial and Keligious life. 

The opinion of the Kev. Dr. King of London and 
other Ministers who knew Mr. and Mrs. Gordon per- 
sonally — Mr. Gordon's personal appearance and 
mental endowments-— Mrs. Gordon's father and 
mother — Her connection with France, England, Ire- 
land, and Scotland — Her conversion and character 
Why she married Mr. Gordon — Their happiness 
and hospitality at home — Mr. Gordon's remarkable 
way of conducting family worship — His amazing 
power in prayer and preaching — Mr. Gordon a Model 



CONTENTS. IX 

PAGE 

Missionary — The Sabbath I spent with him in visit- 
ing his own Mission Stations — His religious habits 
when travelling from home on business — Eemarkable 
incidents, showing his eccentricities — Extracts from 
his correspondence casting light on the state of his 
mind — His denominational connection — ^Why he 
was baptized by immersion, although not a member 
of the Baptist body, &c. — Several practical reflec- 
tions on the whole Chapter ......... 38 

CHAPTER v. 

The Great Jamaica " Kevival," ^nd the part which 
Mr. Gordon took in it. 
The awakening at Chapelton, my own Station, and 
how it was produced — Three hundred conversions in 
our Chapel in one week — Extraordinary prostrations, 
and supernatural phenomena — How the work of 
Grace spread among all sections of Christians — Love, 
zeal, and liberality of the converts — Candidates for 
Church fellowship, how we tested their sincerity- 
Effects of the Eevival on all classes — A week with 
the Eev. Professor Renton of the United Presby- 
terian Church, at Mount Olivet— Most marvellous 
work of Eevival mtnessed there — My opinion of 
Mr. and Mrs. Eenton — The Revival commenced at 
Kingston in Mr. Gordon's Tabernacle — The 
wonderful work of the Spirit I witnessed there 
— Mr. Gordon and myself conducting meetings 
on the Kingston Parade — Great excitement and 
gatherings of all classes — His Eoyal Highness Prince 
AKred's visit to Jamaica during the Eevival, and the 
effect of his visit — Prayer Meetings given up in 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Kingston, and great arrangements for a Grand Ball 
on his account — Official orders that the Ball should 
not take place, and the inhabitants disappointed — 
The Holy Spirit quenched in Kingston, and the 
visible judgments which immediately fell upon the 
city — The great lessons of the Revival to the Church 
and the world 60 

CHAPTER VI. 

Mr. Gordon's Political Life. 

Current opinions at home and abroad about Mr. 
Gordon's political views — Why he was opposed and 
persecuted by his compeers — Why a few of the 
Clergy and Missionaries took part with his foes — 
His popularity as a Reformer — The political corrup- 
tion of Jamaica and Mr. Gordon's faithful exposi- 
tions of injustice and oppression — The veracity of his 
statements and the soundness of his judgment cor- 
roborated by what came under my own notice in 
Jamaica — Governor Eyre's personal controversy with 
Mr. Gordon for several years — How and why the 
Governor degraded Mr. Gordon by unjustly depriv- 
ing him of his commission as a Magistrate — Mr. 
Gordon's Letters to Governor Eyre, the Duke of 
Newcastle and myself on the occasion—His excel- 
lent letter to the Bishop of Jamaica, disclosing the 
Ecclesiastical state of the Island — His uniform 
loyalty, and his kindness to his political opponents 
— His racy and powerful Rhetoric in the " Jamaica 
Parliament" — His political opinions confirmed by 
the " Royal Commission," and by the present Go- 
vernor of Jamaica — Gordon the Elijah of his time, 



CONTENTS. XI 

PAGE 

and the true successor of the immortal Knibb — 
The mental slavery of Jamaica — The gagging and 
flogging systems, and how they operated and remu- 
nerated — Striking anecdotes, from my personal 
knowledge, to illustrate these systems among the 
planters and the civil authorities — Three important 
practical observations on the Chapter ..... 80 

CHAPTER VII. 

Mr. Gordon's Apprehension, Trial and Death. 

Different kinds of death, all trying to the dying and 
to survivors — A felon's death the most revolting of 
any — Mr. Gordon's state of health at the time of the 
outbreak — His last morning at home, and how he 
was exercised — The portions of Scripture which oc- 
cupied his mind — How Mrs. Gordon cheered him 
-^The infernal "fun" of shooting and hanging 
human beings, and flogging pregnant women be- 
coming insipid, and the carnage becoming carrion — 
A nobler victim retjuired to head the " Great Kebel- 
lion," alias paltry riot — Speeches at the Council 
Chamber — Why Mr. Gordon was proposed as a fit 
"ringleader" — Rejoicing at the favourable ojDpor- 
tunity for despatching him — Difficulties in the way 
of getting rid of him, and how they were adroitly 
surmounted — Mr. Gordon prejudged — Why he re- . 
signed himself into the hands of his enemies when 
he might, as ad\dsed by friends, have concealed 
himself or fled for refuge — His last interview with 
Mrs. Gordon while he was being conducted from 
Kingston as a doomed felon — A most affecting scene 
— Why he was denied legal advice, competent wit- 



XU CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

nesses, and a fair trial, sucIl as lie claimed and was 
entitled to — The indignities he had to endure before 
and during his mock trial, hj the three striplings at 
Morant Bay— His last hour on earth and how he 
improved it — His dying testimony as expressed in 
his last letter to his deaf wife — Practical inferences 
deduced from the Chapter— Verses on Gordon's 
death, by J. Ripley, Esq. — Opinion of various 
Ministers and others of Mr. Gordon's character, &c. 106 

CHAPTER VIII. 

An Epitome of the whole history of the "Jamaica 
Outbreak." 
The cau.se of the outbreak, with its horrors and 
consequences—Extracts from the Solicitors^ Journal, 
the British Quarterly Revieiv, &c — " Jamaica's Woes," 
A Dirge by the Author, on reading the first accounts 
of the outbreak — Practical suggestions on the 'future 
management of Jamaica, &c., &c. . 145 



THE HOXOURABLE 

GEORGE W. GOKDON, 

OF JAMAICA. 

HIS EVENTFUL LIFE AND TRAGICAL 
DEATH. 



INTEODUCTOEY CHAPTEE. 

MY AEEIVAL IN JA^^IAICA, AXD PIEST IXTEEYIEW 
WITH ME. GOEDOX. 

Ox BOAED THE " Ca\ibeiax/' — A iDeautifiil morn- 
ing! and not much rolling of the vessel. Wit- 
nessed a magnificent sun-rise, a little past six 
o'clock. A seafaring life need not be a dull 
monotony. The glorious scenery on the rolling 
waters surpasses that of the solid land. The 
ocean presents some new prospect every hour of 
the day, and utters, by its magical ventriloquism, 
every variety of sound. Sometimes I see an 
extensive "country-dance" of hills, leaping, 
reeling, tumbling, helter-skelter, and madly toss- 
ing their foamy heads against the lowering 
clouds : now I behold hills, valleys, and plains, 
promiscuously exchanging places, chasing and 

1 



2 Life of Hon. G. W, Gordon. 

embracing each other with fantastic glee : now 
they are splashing and fighting most furiously, 
and threatening to swallow unmercifully the 
creaking vessel, with its quaking passengers : 
now they commingle, and seem like a vast caul- 
dron of boiling water ; and again they lie down 
lovingly together, without a ripple, peaceful as a 
sleeping infant. One while you hear the billows 
roaring and howling terrifically, then lamentably 
weeping and wailing, then merrily laughing and 
singing, and then moaning and sighing most 
piteously. And when the wondering eyes look 
upwards to the walls and ceiling of this undu- 
lating palace, what entrancing views are ever 
and anon disclosing to them there ! The reful- 
gent sun is surrounded by chariots of bur- 
nished gold. The whole canopy is a grand pano- 
ramic display of dissolving views, comprising 
sailing fleets, stately castles, gorgeous temples, 
floating mountains, placid lakes, moving deserts, 
and waving forests, with creatures of every 
colour, form, and dimension, constantly gliding 
into existence, and quickly vanishing away like 
fairies. When the curtain is drawn over these 
enchanting exhibitions of the day, then the 
night reveals her peerless glories. The crescent 
moon steals up in unobtrusive majesty from be- 
hind the liquid hills, so fair, so beautiful! She 
diffuses her queenly benefactions, so unostenta- 



My Arrived in Jamaica. 



tionsly, reminding us of the words of her Lord, 
and ours — " Therefore when thou doest thine 
alms do not sound a trumpet before thee . . . 
But when thou doest alms let not thy left hand 
know what thy right hand doeth." Her expan- 
sive " charity beoins at home." First, she makes 
her own immediate neighbourhood look as bright 
and happy as possible. She has a soft smile of 
remembrance for this little speck on the billowy 
deep. No sooner has she ascended her star- 
spangled throne than she forms a tremulous sil- 
very pathway across the dark waters, to guide onr 
lonely vessel, which attends us like a guardian 
angel of light; it widens as she rises higher 
and higher in her glory, until the cheering 
nightly blessing is munificently spread over sky, 
and earth, and sea. Had Adam and Eve, in 
Paradise, joy surpassing that of my dear wdfe 
and myself, sitting on deck, making reflections 
on the moon, the stars, the winds, the waves, and 
the clouds ? Truly, God's " way is in the sea, 
and His path in the great waters." " They that 
go down to the sea in ships, that do business in 
great waters; these see the w^orks of the Lord." 
Often have I stood on deck, and sung the eighth 
Psalm, looking up, considering the heavens the 
work of God's finger, the moon and the stars, 
which He has ordained. 

After recovering from the horrors of sea-sick- 
le 



4 Life cf Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

iiesS; I have been enabled to preach each Sab- 
bath, and to conduct worship every morning and 
evening, as well as distribute religious tracts to 
the passengers and crew. I have been much 
pleased lately with the general demeanour of all 
on board, and the attention given to the interests 
of the soul. ^Tiile low bv sea-sickness, all 
seemed very reckless, indulging freely in gam- 
bling and frivolous amusements, and singing silly 
and sometimes profane songs, to kill time, which 
seemed to pass slowly, while little or no respect 
was paid to the command, "Eemember the Sab- 
bath-day to keep it holy." As soon as able, I 
proposed to form a " Mutual Improvement 
Society" on board, and drew out a code of rules, 
which were cordially approved of. The idea 
seemed a novelty, but all appeared delighted with 
it ; for some fine young men on board did not 
know what to make of themselves and their 
time. The hours for study were from 10 till 12 
A.M., and from 4 till 6 p.m. This floating insti- 
tution worked like a charm in effecting; a tho- 
rough reformation, and gave me an immense 
amount of beneficial influence. The swearing, 
the gambling, the drinking, the ballad- singing, 
and the idling flew away, like evil birds of pas- 
sage, as soon as our society was inaugurated. 
Besides the ordinary branches of education we 
had classes for the languages, music, &c., in which 



My Arrival in Jamaica. 



*o 



some took a most lively interest. Sacred music 
took the place of profane songs, and useful and 
interesting topics superseded foolish jesting. Here 
let me express my astonishment that so little pro- 
vision is made in our splendid Eoyal Mail steamers 
for the intellectual entertainment of passengers. 
For the body, everything is provided on a royally 
sumptuous scale ; but might there not be arrange- 
ments made for the mind as well as the body ? 
Could there not be provision made for a course 
of popular lectures and some daily intellectual 
treats ? Oh ! how they would be enjoyed. I 
know they would ; for epicures themselves get 
tired of doing nothing but eating, drinking, and 
sleeping for nearly a month together. "Will 
some enterprizing company kindly take the hint, 
and cast this kind of bread upon the waters ? 
For the encouragement of other sea passengers, 
as well as for the glory of God, I must not omit 
to state my physical experience on the Atlantic. 
The evil spirits of the deep soon marked my wife 
and myself for their prey, and for three long 
weeks they held complete dominion over us, set- 
ting every effort of ourselves and others at utter 
defiance to struggle out of their fangs. For a 
week they would not allow us to eat, not an 
ounce of food, and the very cup of cold vjater they 
envied us ; and they compelled us to throw it to 
them as soon as it was swallowed. They tore 



& Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

away our very flesh, and left scarcely onglit of us 
but life, and a bag of bones. The little sym- 
pathy manifested towards us was generally ac- 
companied by congratulation that we were in the 
hands of the sea-doctors, who were doing their 
duty faithfully night and day, and would com- 
pletely renovate our constitution. Well might 
Solomon say, ^' As he that taketh away a garment 
in cold weatlier, and as vinegar upon nitre ; so is 
he that singeth songs to an heavy heart." Con- 
gratulation, indeed ! when almost dead with sick- 
ness and nauseation ! Truly, the doctors (rough 
as they were) did their duty, internally and ex- 
ternalty. Complaints, of some years' standing, 
have been completely eradicated by the sea- 
sickness. Xever did we feel so fresh and stout 
and vigorous as we now do. Thus God has 
chastened us in love, brought health to us out of 
sickness, sweetness out of bitterness, and sent the 
sea monsters only to search for all our lurking 
ailments, and drown them, like Israel's foes, in 
the mighty waters. We must not judge of God's 
dealings by their present aspect, but by their de- 
sign and ultimate issues. We have now ample 
reason to praise Him for all the storms, and for 
the sea-sickness produced by them. Now that we 
are getting strong, and voraciously appetized, 
others, who, at tlie commencement of the voyage 
escaped the sea-sickness, are becoming bilious, 



My Arrival in Jamaica. 7 

and daily requiring medicine. The food Avliicli 
they relished a month ago now palls on them, and 
alas ! there is no chanoe to be had for them. In 
this marine school may we not learn most salu- 
tary and comforting lessons on Divine Providence ? 
Shall we not, at some future period, in time or in 
eternity, see sufficient cause to praise the Lord, 
not less for all the trials than for all the mercies 
of the present life ? Even here, we may sing, not 
only of mercy but of judgment also : for all things 
work together for good to them that love God. 

" Judge not the Lord by feeble sense 
But trust Him for Ms grace ; 
Behind a frowning providence 
He hides a smiling face. 

" His purposes -^-ill ripen fast, 
Unfolding every hour : 
The bud may have a loitter taste, 
But sweet will be the flower." 

All eyes are now sparkling, joyful with the 
hope of seeing Jamaica before night. The 
thought of being so near the land of my adoption 
and missionary labom^s has made me quite ner- 
vous. I feel dejected, because I am so unpre- 
pared for entering on my great vocation. I could 
almost wish for a year or two longer for general 
study, especially for the study of the sacred 
Scriptures. I am about to enter on work for 
God, for immortal souls, for the judgment-day, 



8 Life of Hon, G. W. Gordon. 

for eternity ! The result of my landing in 
Jamaica, if spared there a few years, must either 
be " a savour of life unto life/' or else of " death 
unto death" to thousands. God, so sanctify, 
enlighten, guide, and influence my heart and con- 
duct from day to day, that by my behayiour, 
my prayers, and preaching, I may be to Thee " a 
sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved, 
and them that perish." Let my aim and effort 
always be directed for Thy glory, and the good of 
precious souls. 

What faith and confidence we have, as passen- 
gers, reposed in our intrepid captain and gallant 
crew ! Oh ! that men would put equal trust in 
God ! What had we but the words of erring 
mortals to rest upon when we left home, with all 
its sacred endearments, to encounter the dangers 
and privations of the mighty ocean ? And why 
should not the testimony of Him wJio cannot lie 
induce men to leave their state of sin and misery 
and embark on the Christian life, buoyant with 
the certain hope of one day entering triumphantly 
the port of glory ? Near as we are to Jamaica 
to-day, there is no assurance that any of us shall 
ever see it— a gust or a leak might consign us all 
to a watery grave. There is not even ^^ a step 
between us and death." Not so contingent as 
this are the hopes of the spiritual mariner; 
neither fierce winds, stormy waves, nor devouring 



My Arrival in Jamaica. 9 

flames, can intercept his progress, or prevent 
liis entering the desired haven of eternal rest. 

February 12th, 1856. After being for nearly 
two months rocked on the bosom of the great 
waters, I cannot describe my feelings as I stood 
last night intently gazing at a Jamaica lighthouse, 
glimmering far ahead. That flickering beacon- 
flame irradiated every countenance on board, and 
fired every bosom with joy and gratitude, while, 
like a faithful sentinel, it kindly informed us that 
the long-looked-for destination was nigh, and 
warned us of danger. I got on deck about one 
o'clock this morning, and found that our noble 
vessel was quietly sailing along by the eastern 
coast of Jamaica. As it was very dark, I retired 
to bed until dawn ; then, oh ! what a welcome 
sight ! The night was trailing up her grey skirts, 
preparing to retreat from the approaching sun, 
" which was, as a bridegroom, coming out of his 
chamber, and rejoicing as a strong man to run a 
race." In a little while the glorious orb grandly 
rose in radiant majesty, and instantly flung a 
glowing diadem of beauty on the exalted head of 
every mountain and hill, and covered all the dewy 
vales with dazzling robes of light. As I beheld 
the bursting magnificence of that hour, I could 
say, in the words of the poet : — 

" Transported with the view I'm lost 
In wonder, love, and praise." 



10 Life of Hon. G. F. Gordon. 

As we slowly advanced througli tlie slumber- 
ing waves towards Port Eoyal, the first work of 
human invention that excited onr curiosity in 
that direction was a hideous gallows, on which, 
in former times, pirat-es were wont to be executed 
— an appropriate memento of the horrible perpe- 
trations and barbarous inflictions of the dark 
days of slavery, and of the notorious iniquity of 
the cursed city that was swallowed up there by 
an earthquake. Our invincible " Cambrian" had a 
majestic appearance as she entered Kingston Har- 
bour, " safe and sound,'* after riding victoriously 
through all the warring elements of the wide 
Atlantic. I shall never forget either the misery 
I endured in that ship while sea-sick, or the hap- 
piness I enjoyed when I recovered from the horrid 
malady. Having said farewell to our good cap- 
tain, kind sailors, and obliging fellow-passengers, 
we were cordially welcomed to the lovely " Isle of 
Springs" by several gentlemen who were awaiting 
our arrival. I could scarcely walk after coming 
ashore, the ground seemed so heavy and unyield- 
ing as compared with tlie motion of the ship ; 
neither could I stand or sit still for some time, 
but felt inclined to undulate as when on the sea. 

I did not like the appearance of Kingston or 
its inhabitants. Every thing looked different from 
my preconceptions. I felt as if entering a new 
world. When I left London I had to break the 



My Arrival in Jamaica, 11 

ice in my bed-room before I could wash my hands 
and face ; here, while it is yet winter, I am op- 
pressed with more than summer's heat. 

I have now reached the mission-house of my 
oiv'ji station, at Chapelton. My residence is, in- 
deed, beautiful for situation, nestling in the warm 
bosom of a lovely hill, with Salem Chapel resting 
peacefully at its base, shaded by lofty cocoa-nut 
trees. Eich valleys, waving with sugar planta- 
tions, stretch afar on either side of it. I am com- 
passed about with evergreen mountains, cultivated 
and inhabited up to their very summits, and gaily 
plumed with feathery clumps of bamboos, bowing 
gracefully in the balmy breeze. Sweet oranges, 
mangoes, shaddocks, guavas, bread-fruits, star- 
apples, naseberries, plantains, bananas, pome- 
granates, tamarinds, figs, dates, and many other 
luscious fruits are dangling in myriads through- 
out tliis sumptuous banqueting-house of God, 
'' without money and without price.'' It is mar- 
vellous to meet with such a paradise as this in a 
world of sin. I can understand the feelino-s of 
the great Columbus when, on discovering the 
West Indies, he said, "These countries as far 
exceed all others in beauty and convenience, as 
the sun surpasses the moon in brightness and 
splendour." 

I preached my first sermon in Jamaica on Feb- 
ruary 17th, 1856. Then the dreams of my 



12 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

youth were interpreted, and the fondest desires of 
my heart realized, as I stood up to preach the 
Gospel in a foreign land ; and yet " my heart was 
overwhelmed and in perplexity." Tears rolled 
down my cheeks ; I trembled and faltered ; I tried 
to stifle my emotions, but it was in vain. After 
giving vent to my feelings I became calm and 
collected. On looking round, I saw in that sanc- 
tuary a mixed multitude, very grotesquely ap- 
pareled, with faces black as ebony, gazing 
earnestly on me, and ready to devour my every 
word and look. 

Not far from the pulpit I saw a lady and two 
gentlemen, over whom my eyes lingered with 
peculiar interest. The lady was not only white, 
but there seemed to be something about her 
that reminded me of my dear mother. One of 
the gentlemen was white also, and his whole 
bearing in the house of God indicated that he 
was a Scotchman. The other gentleman appeared 
to be a compound of the European and the Afri- 
can. He was tall, stately, well-dressed ; his com- 
plexion somewhat dark, his brow massive and 
towering, his eye penetrating and glowing, and 
his whole countenance beamed as if he felt his 
soul basking in the smile of God. Everything 
about him proclaimed that he was a great and a 
good man. The interesting trio politely ap- 
proached me at the close of the service. The 



My Arrival in Jamaica, 13 

gentleman -witli the dark complexion warmly 
shook my hand, and, with a very winning smile, 
introduced himself as George Gordon, the lady as 
Mrs. Gordon, and the other gentleman as Mr. 
Anderson, solicitor. This gentleman went (as 
will be remembered) in the same vessel with Mr. 
Gordon, when he was dragged away from Kings- 
ton to Morant Bay, for trial by court-martial, that 
he might give him a word or a note of legal ad- 
vice, which proffered item of justice and humanity 
was wickedly denied ! 

I have thus introduced my readers to the Hon. 
G. W. Gordon, at the time I first met him. His 
name has, since that period, became a household 
word in every part of the known world. Al- 
though conscious of my inability to execute ade- 
quately the task involved in presenting an epitome 
of Mr. Gordon's wonderful life, yet, from my in- 
timate acquaintance with him, and my personal 
knowledge of Jamaica affairs, I feel that it would 
not only be traitorous to my martyred friend, but 
also to the cause of truth and justice, were I not 
to give a faithful statement of facts, affecting the 
fame of his memory, tlie interests of his country, 
and the destinies of his people. 



14 Life of Hon. G. W, Gordon. 



CHAPTER II. 

MR. GORDON'S PARENTAGE AND YOUTH. 

Some of the greatest and best of men were born in 
the worst of times, and under the most inauspicious 
circumstances. Ah ! the oppression of tyrants 
and the vices of parents have conspired to render 
the fate of many lovely and promising children 
very miserable. Who has not wept over the early 
destiny of Moses ? Although his parents were 
loving and religious, the dread of the tyrant pre- 
vented them from discharging their parental duties 
to the darling of their heart. At the risk of life 
they managed to conceal their precious treasure 
for the space of three months ; but, at the end of 
that period they had to abandon him, and there, 
after many tearful caresses, they laid him, sweetly 
asleep in his little ark, on the brink of the Mle. 
Who would have thought that in that tiny cradle 
lay the illustrious hero who was destined to break 
in pieces the power of the mighty oppressor, and 
lead the captive tribes of Jehovah forth, trium- 
phantly, from the land of Egypt and the house 
of bondage, the splendour of whose prov/ess should 
dazzle the v/orld ? Although Moses was an out- 
cast babC; his parents were not to blame : they 



Parentage and Youth. ' 1 5 

did what they could for him ; but not a few 
fathers and mothers could be named who care as 
little for their children as they do for the croco- 
diles of Egypt. These poor innocents know 
nothing of a father's kindly protection, or of a 
mother's fond embraces. Not a little ark, nor a 
little coat is made for them, poor, hapless things ! 
nor are they laid on the brink of the river ; but 
their parents, like demons in human form, cruelly 
throw them on the troubled waters of a sinful 
world, utterly heedless of what may betide them. 
Mr. Gordon had the misfortune to be ushered 
into existence at an epoch when even British 
residents in Jamaica minded only earthly things, 
made a god of their belly, gloried in their shame, 
and made a mock at sin. His father, Mr. Joseph 
Gordon, is a Scotchman, a native of Inverness, 
and has resided in the colony for more than half 
a century. He was not only hale, but fresh and 
vigorous the last time I saw him, and could con- 
verse freely in his Celtic vernacular. On one 
occasion he asked and received, in Gaelic, my 
opinion of Mrs. Gordon, while she sat beside us 
at the breakfast table, in "blessed ignorance" of 
the subject of our colloquy. Mr. Gordon's father, 

being a man of sober and industrious habits, be- 
came a planter of great affluence and high position 

n the island. He had the honour of being, for 
any years, the Mayor of Kingston, and was long 



16 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon, 

associated with the legislature of the country. 
Mr. Gordon's mother was of African descent, one 
of his father's slaves, and, of course, liable to any 
abuse which her lordly proprietor might feel dis- 
posed to inflict upon her. Although but a de- 
graded bondwoman, she had maternal feelings, 
which secured for her the affection and esteem of 
her unfortunate child ; for that child, after he be- 
came a man, was wont to retire to the rough and 
lonely grave, and mournfully weep over the dust 
of his dear mother. Mr. Gordon's father was, 
in some respects, an exception and a pattern to 
the plantocracy of Jamaica, although, in his 
yoimger days, like all his compeers, he was shame- 
fully regardless of the requirement in the seventh 
commandment, "to preserve our own and our 
neighbour's chastity in heart, speech, and be- 
haviour." 

A brief delineation of the state of morals 
which surrounded my lamented friend, especially 
in his early life, may not be inadmissible here, 
inasmuch as the grace of God will thereby be 
magnified, which enabled him to live and die a 
consistent Christian in a land of such unparal- 
leled iniquity. 

As late as the year 1832, when Mr. Gordon 
was a stripling, impressible as melted wax, Mr. 
Bailie, a large ^Yest Indian proprietor, on being 
examined before a Committee of the House of 



Parentage and Youth. 17 

Lords, was asked if he could name any overseer, 
driver, or other person in authority who did not 
keep a mistress. His reply was, "I cannot." 
Long (who is regarded as the favourite historian 
of the planters) says : " The name of a family 
man was formerly held in the greatest derision ; 
whilst for the white man to form a matrimonial 
alliance with a woman of colour, although she 
might have lived with him for years, and borne 
him several children, would be for ever to forfeit 
his rank in white society, and transmit his name 
to posterity in imperishable infamy. Many who 
succeeded to the management of estates had 
much fewer good qualities than the slaves over 
whom they were set in authority, the better 
sort of whom heartily despised them, perceiving 
little or no difference from themselves, except 
in skin and hlacker depravity!' 

Eenny, in his " History of Jamaica," says : — 
" Surely there never was a greater inconsistency 
than a profession of religion here. In some of 
the parishes, which are larger than our shires, 
there is no church ; in others there is no priest, 
and when there is, the white inhabitants never 
think of attending. In a town which contains 
between 20,000 and 30,000 inhabitants, there 
is but one church, whilst the attendance at first 
sight is somewhat surprising. When you enter 
the church on Sunday you see the curate, the 

2 



18 Life of Hon, G, F. Gm^don. 

clerk, tlie sexton, one or two magistrates, and 
about a dozen of gentlemen, and nearly double 
that number of ladies. Nothing troubles the 
white inhabitants less than the concerns of 
religion. Christianity, indeed, is so contrary in 
its spirit, in its doctrines, and in its injunctions 
to their conduct, their prejudices, and their 
interests, that it is not at all surprising that 
even the mutilated form of it which the English 
Church presents to them should be very ob- 
noxious, and, though not much spoken against, 
3^et secretly despised and openly neglected. In 
the towns many of the stores are open on the 
Sunday, and business is transacted in them as 
usual, with this difference, that the clerks and 
negroes generally have that day to themselves, 
wdiich the former spend in amusement, and the 
latter in idleness and debauchery.'' Eef erring to 
the white colonists born and brought up in the 
West Indies, Mr. Stephen says : "Many of them, 
I believe, have rarely been in a place of worship 
in their lives." 

Phillippo, in his w^ork on "Jamaica, its Past 
and Present State," details a few cases illus- 
trative of the horrible hcentiousness of the com- 
munity in Mr. Gordon's youthtul days; for 
example, a white man who had in his native 
country enjoyed the benefit of a religious educa- 
tion, on one occasion addressed a missionary in 



Parentage and Youth, 19 

the following terms : — "What, sir, shall I do ? 
You have no idea of the degree of wickedness 
that prevails among the people of my own colour 
throughout the country. I am a poor man, 
and, therefore, cannot leave the island, or else 
most gladly would I do so ; besides, I am now 
out of employment, and were it known that I 
had attended the preaching of a missionary, or 
were it even known that I had spoken to one 
(and it vnll be known throughout the parish 
before to-morrow night), what, think you will 
be the treatment I shall receive from the over- 
seers of the different properties when I go in 
pursuit of employment ? " (Humanity would be 
too much shocked by quoting the concluding 
part of his statement). Another white man 
exclaimed to a missionary : " 0, this country ! I 
am a wretched and a miserable man. So far as 
the body is concerned I have enough and to 
spare ; but my soul ! what is to become of that ? 
I have never had a happy moment, sir, since I 
turned my back upon God ! " An apparently 
pious and excellent young man, just arrived 
from Scotland, was urged by a near relative to 
give up his religion at once or it would ruin and 
disgrace him ! ! ! On his refusal, he was turned 
out of doors, and directed to seek employment 
on an estate ; and as he left, his relative's part- 
ing words were : " If your religion is not heaten 

2^ 



20 Life of Hon, G. W. Gordon. 

out of you in a few days, I shall be sadly out of 
my reckoning." Alas ! the awful prediction was 
lamentably verified. 

I could, iroia perso7ial knowledge, advert to many 
cases in Jamaica, in these days of boasted free- 
dom and religion, similar to those which I have 
cited from its past history, to show that it is 
still what a wretched white man on one occasion 
called it, as he wept and wailed aloud, viz. : — 
" A hell upon earth ! " The vjhite inhabitants are, 
with few exceptions, quite as dissolute and 
sceptical now as ever they were in the darkest 
days of slavery. Instead of being assistants 
(as they ought in the nature of things to be) 
to the faithful missionary, they are, generally 
speaking, his greatest hindrance in all his 
endeavours to enlighten, convert, and elevate the 
black and coloured population. 

How hard for that little curly-headed, dark- 
eyed slave boy to understand either humanity or 
Christianity in the demoralizing circumstances of 
his youth. There he is, half-naked, stretched on 
the damp earthen floor of that polluted hovel, 
after toiling in his father's cane-fields from dawn 
till twilight. Enter that " den of iniquity " and 
begin to instruct the interesting lad. Endeavour 
to teach him the " First Commandment with 
promise," viz. : " Honour thy father and thy 
mother," &c. Looking up in your face, with an 



Parentage and Youth, 21 

expression of wonder, might he not say, " What can 
I honour my father for ? He lives in a splendid 
mansion, and will not allow his own child the 
place of the dogs under his table. He disdains 
to recognize me when we chance to meet. He 
cares less for me than for the horse which he 
rides, and he regards me only as a thing to be 
bought and sold. Can I honour him for his 
religion ? He reads not God's Word ; he dese- 
crates the Sabbath ; he despises the Saviour ; 
and he outrages virtue." Explain to the bold 
j'outh that we must give honour to whom honour 
is due. But he wants you to tell him, if you 
can, what amount of honour is due to a parent 
who lives like a beast, and is less solicitous for 
the welfare of his offspring than the lower 
animals are for the good of theirs. And you 
must confess that the honour due to parents who 
despise and neglect their children is not so much. 
as is due to a hen, a bear, or a hyaena. 

Open your Bible and read the 103rd Psalm 
to little George. Explain to him the 13th verse : 
"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the 
Lord pitieth them that fear Him." With a look 
of surprise and irony might he not exclaim : 
"There is no pity at all in God !" Where is the 
pity of fathers — white, educated, wealthy fathers 
— towards their poor, despised, forsaken, mal- 
treated children in this part of the world ? You 



1 



22 Life of Hon, G. Tf. Gordon, 

seek to impress upon the debating youngster the 
necessity of purity of heart and conversation, the 
duty of remembering the Sabbath-day to keep it 
holy, the obligation .to love our neighbour as 
ourselves, or any other duty enjoined or implied 
in the Sacred Scriptures. How can you expect 
obedience from him while he observes his supe- 
riors and equals grossly violating the Moral Law, 
" neither fearing God nor regarding man ? " Think 
of a child growing up in the very centre of such 
pernicious influences and not contaminated by 
any of them, but fearing God and keeping His 
commandments in the very morning of his being ! 
A child of this description must have been a very 
prodigy of the grace of God — a little "brand 
plucked out of the fire." If " coming events 
cast their shadows before," ifc might be expected 
that the voice of that remarkable vouth would, 
in after years, like Jolm the Baptist's, be heard 
crying in the wilderness, reproving wickedness in 
high places, exposing corruption in Church and 
State, and saying to the multitudes, " Eepeiit ye, 
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And 
might not men who were neither prophets nor 
prophets' sons predict for such an extraordinary 
boy, situated as he was, a career, if spared, that 
would arouse the most malignant calumny, the 
most inveterate hatred and opposition, and the 
most merciless persecution against him ? Nay, 



Parentage and Youth, 23 

miglit it not be anticipated that, as in the 
Baptist's case, the gnilty opponents of poor 
George Gordon Tvonld yet thirst for the very 
blood of their victim, and that they would not 
be satiated nntil they found themselves, like 
Cerberean monsters, gloating over his martyred 
and mangled body ? The Apostle Paul, in his 
Epistle to Timothy, says ; " From a child thou 
hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able 
to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith, 
which is in Christ Jesus." In the same Epistle 
he says : " Yea, and all that will live Godly in 
Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." Both 
these passages are remarkably applicable to 
the late George William Gordon, of Jamaica. 

From this chapter of his life the following 
lessons maybe learned: — 1st, It is possible for 
children to be pious although their parents 
should be living in shameless iniquity. Instead 
of the fathers, God is pleased sometimes to take 
the children, and make them '' princes of prayer '' 
and virtue in the earth. Nathanael said : " Can 
there any good thing come out of Nazareth ? 
Philip saith unto him. Come and see." Can any 
good thing come out of Jamaica, that ^' modern 
Sodom," '• that hell on earth ? " Can any good 
thing come out of slavery and illegitimacy, the 
poor unfortunate child of which might with pain- 
ful emphasis confess, in the words of the Psalmist, 



1 



24 Life of Hon, G. W, Gordon, 

" Beliold I was shaken in iniquity, and in sin did 
my mother conceive me ! " Come and see George 
Gordon, and many other holy cliildren, bom out 
of wedlock of unholy parents ; and while we are 
privileged to witness such noble examples, we 
are bound to conclude that children who follow 
the vices of their parents are without excuse for 
their guilt. Might not every youth say, like 
Joseph, in the hour of temptation : '' How can I 
do this great wickedness and sin against God V 
2nd, We may infer from this chapter that out- 
ward circumstances do not make either young or 
old people what they are, as some have erro- 
neously maintained. George Gordon grew up to 
be just the counterpoise and opposite of what the 
natural tendency of his circumstances would have 
manufactured, had he, like raw and insensate 
material, submitted to their influences. In him 
we behold a striking proof that man may con- 
quer his circumstances ; yea, rise and live 
sublimely above them, and, indeed, hew out for 
himself a new class of superior circumstances. 
'' He being dead, yet speaketh," and saith to 
every one, " Go, and do thou likewise." 

3rd, From the parentage and youth of Mr. 
Gordon may we not conclude that negro con- 
sanguinity does not entail or foster incapacity, 
indolence, or wickedness, as the enemies of the 
down-trodden Africans are prone to vituperate. 



Parentage and YoutL 25 

That wondrous youth had African blood flowing 
in his veins. He was, nevertheless, a lad of 
indomitable energy and perseverance, and of 
indefatigable assiduity and self-denial. Never 
was there a youth placed in more adverse circum- 
stances than he, and never did a young person 
of any race or clime appear more lovely and 
exemplary. Not a bad habit in the whole 
category of juvenile delinquencies did he ever 
contract, while his mental endowments and acqui- 
sitions would not have disgraced the son of any 
prince or peer in Europe. Although he enjoyed 
not the advantage of the most rudimental educa- 
tion, yet by prayer and self-application, after 
working as a slave the live-long day, under the 
vertical rays of a broiling sun, little George, night 
after night, qualified himself in that rude hut for 
rising to an eminent position, not only as a 
Christian, philanthropist, and patriot, but as a 
man of extensive business, vast property, and as 
a leading member of the Colonial Parliament. 
On more than one occasion he told me of his 
early difficulties, and how, by Divine assistance, 
he managed to surmount them all. He was, in 
the strongest acceptation of the phrase, " A self- 
taught YOUTH." It is evident that " God, who 
made the world and all things therein, hath 
made of one blood all nations of men for to 
dwell on all the face of the earth ;" and that He 



26' Life of Hon, 0. W. Gordon. 

" is no respecter of persons, but in every nation 
he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness 
is accepted with Him." 



CHAPTEE III. 



ME. GORDON'S MEECANTILE LIFE. 



Ho^y great is the mystery of Providence, and how 
mistaken the judgment which is sometimes pro- 
nounced on individuals and events ! The case 
that is considered most unfortunate and hopeless, 
not unfrequently turns out to be a most pros- 
perous and happy one ; whereas, in many in- 
stances, events that are hailed as very propitious, 
issue in disaster and disappointment. There is a 
poor, broken-hearted widow, left penniless in the 
world, with a large family to be fed, clothed, and 
educated by her industry ! As far as man can 
discern, the future wears but a dismal aspect for 
that household ; and, for a time, it is a hard 
struggle to pay the rent and supply the fatherless 
children with the barest necessaries of life. But 



Mercantile Life, 27 

tliat mournful motlier betakes herself, night after 
night, to Him who is " the Husband of the widow 
and the Father of the fatherless ;" and friends are 
soon raised up for her where, perhaps, she least 
expected to find them. She thankfully observes 
that her little ones, though sparingly fed and 
meanly clad, are more rosy, chubby, and merry 
than the children of the wealthier classes, who 
" are clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare 
sumptuously every day;" ay, and they are more 
loving, obedient, and thankful, too. They are 
trained to endure hardness, and inured to habits 
of self-reliance — advantages w^hich, in after life, 
will go far to counterbalance the superior educa- 
tion and accomplishments supplied by affluence 
and luxury. After a few years of loving anxiety 
and toil have rolled away, that poor widow's chil- 
dren rise up and call her blessed. One of them 
is a preacher of the Gospel, another is a merchant 
prince, a third is an illustrious statesman, while 
he rest, if not all great, are — what is far better 
— all good ; whereas the members of that other 
amily, dehcately brought up and fashionably 
educated, have not risen above, but sunk far 
below the circumstances which surrounded their 
youthful days, while some of them, through 
criminal indulgences, fostered, it may be, in the 
home of their childhood, have become a grief to 
their parents, and a pest to society. Such exam- 



28 Life of Hon. G. F. Gordo7i. 

pies could be numerously specified in modern 
times, and, if we search the Scriptures, we shall 
find that not a few of the greatest Bible worthies 
were, in early life,, what the w^orld would regard 
as persons not likely to arrive at any eminent dis- 
tinction in life. Take, for example the case of 
David, whom " God chose as his servant, and took 
him from the sheepfolds — from following the 
ewes great with young. He brought him to feed 
Jacob His people, and Israel His inheritance." 
Joseph, the friendless, hopeless, dungeoned slave, 
is exalted by the mysterious and gracious inter- 
position of Providence to a very high position in 
Egypt. Witness Daniel, too, a forlorn captive in 
a strange land, rising amid adverse circumstances 
to a position of great influence and renown. 
" Then the king made Daniel a great man, and 
gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler 
over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of 
the governors over all the wise men of Babylon." 
Thus we see how ^' God raiseth up the poor out of 
the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dung- 
hill, that He may set him with princes.'' 

Mr. Gordon, being originally but a poor slave, 
was, of course, destitute of the necessary capital 
for entering on any extensive business for some 
time after his emancipation; but he had w^hat 
was better than thousands of gold and silver — 
the fear and love of God in his heart — a clear 



Mercantile Life. 29 

intellect in his head — sound health in liis consti- 
tution — prepossessing integrity and uprightness 
in his open countenance — insinuative suavity and 
kindness in his manner, which soon secured for 
him friends who esteemed, loved, and trusted him. 
His own father began at length to patronize him 
*by occasional visits and commissions, while a 
benevolent lady, who appreciated his talents, in- 
dustry, and piety, lent him £1,000, for which he 
paid her due interest for a number of years, and 
to whom he afterwards reimbursed the capital 
with cordial thanks. 

As a merchant, Mr. Gordon was most laborious, 
being often in his office till ten o'clock at night, 
which, in a broiling city like Kingston, required 
a wiry constitution and Herculean strength. In 
the course of a few years of incessant applica- 
tion in a prosperous enterprise, my friend accu- 
mulated a large amount of money, and yet he was 
one of the most unselfish and unsecular men I ever 
knew. From the very commencement of his mer- 
cantile career, he kept some noble ulterior purpose 
steadily before his mind, which daily spurred him 
on at an astonishing rate of energy and alacrity 
in all his transactions. Although he was exalted 
himself, his beloved sisters were in ignorance and 
degradation ; and, like Moses, his tender heart 
yearned for their good. The thought of being 
able to elevate his dear sisters from the horrors 






30 Life of Hon, 0. W, Gordon. 

and polutions of slavery, anointed and braced 
George's muscles and nerves, quickened Ms pace, 
and sweetened his toils. The grand and gallant 
object which brotherly affection, sanctified by the 
grace of God, had suggested, he constantly aimed 
at, until it was happily achieved. That w^as a 
superlatively bright and joyful day for Mr. Gor^ 
don's sisters, when they lovingly embraced him, 
and would hardly let him go ; their hearts burst- 
ing, and tears of gratitude streaming hot from 
their eyes, as they almost adored their brave and 
generous brother^ who, unsohcited and unaided, 
had become their protector from the deepest 
shame and the blackest woe of womanhood. But 
George w^as an educated gentleman, while his 
poor sisters, though free, were necessarily ignorant 
and brutalised by the circumstances from which 
they had been rescued. Who will now counsel 
and educate them ? Their father ? Ah, no ! but 
dear George will be as a father and a brother to 
them. With affectionate solicitude, tenderness, 
and skill, he taught his sisters the rudiments of 
useful knowledge ; and, having succeeded, as far 
as possible, in eradicating from them the rudeness 
which the ugly stamp of slavery never fails to 
impress on its victims, he began to contemplate, 
for his now hopeful sisters, something better than 
could be acquired at any of the educational insti- 
tutions of Jamaica, w^hich were not then so eflfi- 



Mercantile Life. 31 

cient as they are at the present time. After 
much serious thought, and many earnest prayers, 
Mr. Gordon arrived at the conclusion that it was 
his duty, as well as his privilege, to furnish them 
with the necessary means for securing to them a 
" finished education ! " When he first hinted the 
subject to them, they burst into a flood of tears, 
and, like Jacob, when he heard the apparently too 
good news from Egj^t, their heart almost fainted. 
They thought their dear brother had done too 
much for them already. And while they believed 
not for joy, poor George, whose feelings were quite 
overcome as he witnessed the grateful emotions of 
those dear girls, was obliged to retire by himself 
and weep for some time. Having thanked God 
for giving him the heart and the means to be a 
blessing to his sisters, and prayed earnestly for 
the Divine guidance and protection for them, he 
got them prepared, and sent them first to London, 
and then to Paris, to be thoroughly educated : and 
well might these late slave drudges, as they were 
Iday by day fed and clothed and educated, as 
ladies of the highest rank, at George's expense, 
exclaim: "Many brothers have done virtuously, 
|but OURS excels them all." Had George done no 
lore than that in the world, his name should be 
enshrined, and his memory embalmed in the heart 
>f the great, the wise, and the good throughout 
ill generations. Mr. Gordon's sisters have all 



32 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

done well, and are highly respected — they are, 
indeed, an honour to their sex-. Some of them 
are very comfortably married, and others are en- 
gaged in conducting a first-class seminary for 
young ladies. They continued to be dotingly 
attached to their brother, and to them, as, indeed, 
to millions who never had the pleasure of his 
personal acquaintance, his tragical death has been 
an overwhelming calamity. 

What a chequered world is this ! How fickle 
is fortune ! Mr. Gordon's father, from being very 
rich, and laden with civic honours, became, 
through a series of crushing reverses, one of the 
poorest men in Jamaica. The scales of fortune 
had been completely turned — the son ascended 
high up, and the father descended low down, and 
George proved himself a filial son as well as a 
dutiful brother. Instead of now despising that 
father who was wont to despise him, and indulg- 
ing in feelings of selfglorification and revenge, he 
manifested the deepest sympathy and compassion 
for him. He bought and paid for his father's 
encumbered and mortgaged estates, allowing him 
to occupy them in the full enjoyment of his for- 
mer comforts and luxuries, and generously settled 
on him a handsome annuity. Often have I seen 
that father hospitably entertained in the princely 
mansion of his slave-boy, to whom he would not 
give, in former years, even the place of the dogs 



His immense Property. 33 

■under his table. Thus George returned good for 
evil, a blessing for the curse, and honour for dis- 
honour. 

But Mr. Gordon, in his secular pursuits, ^^as 
strongly actuated by philanthropic, a^ well as 
fraternal and filial principles and feelings, which 
in some of their practical operations, gave a 
Utopian and stultified appearance to some of his 
commercial transactions, in the eves of those 
who did not know his motives. Some scrupled 
not to charge him with insatiable avarice, as they 
found him buying one immense estate after ano- 
ther, until he had vast plantations in almost 
every parish throughout the colony ; others pro- 
nounced him a foolish speculator in dismantled 
and thrown-up estates, which could yield him no 
adequate compensation for his money, especially 
as, having so many of them on hand, he was 
unable to bring them under proper cultivation. 
And, in a merely pecuniary respect, Mr. Gordon's 
landed speculations could not be justified. Al- 
though he never became insolvent, but was enabled 
to meet all demands, during every crisis in his 
commercial life, even when others of apparently 
greater sagacity and more opulent means had 
i failed; yet he must, at certain periods, have ex- 
I perienced unpleasant embarrassments. Mr. Gor- 
1 don closely identified himself with the cause of 
emancipation. He was grieved at witnessing the 



34 Life of Hon. G. F. Gordon. 

injustice and oppression experienced by his mater- 
nal kindred, not only before, but after their manu- 
mission ; and he was gallantly devising compre- 
hensive schemes for their amelioration and ad- 
vancement, x' Seeing that the emancipated people 
had very great difficulty in either renting or pur- 
chasing land from their late owners, the planters, 
who seemed madly bent on grinding and keeping 
them down, Mr. Gordon's proprietary adventures 
arose chiefly from a lofty and laudable desire to 
provide little farms or freeholds, as cheaply and 
conveniently as possible for his liberated brethren. 
I know that he also formed, and to some extent 
executed, a system of mercantile enterprize, by 
which the enfranchised small settlers could ob- 
tain, in full, the current market prices for the 
produce of their industry, as it was (and, I fear, 
is still,) a common practice, with fraudulent 
dealers, to overreach and plunder them by false 
weights and measures, and many other strata- 
gems. 

Mr. Gordon's political and religious projects, 
which he carried on at great trouble and expense, 
in connection with his business transactions, I re- 
serve for another chapter. 

From the points brought to view, in the pre- 
sent chapter of Gordon's eventful life, the follow- 
ing practical lessons may be deduced. 

1st. Great and good men in their brightest 



Humility and Kindness, 35 

season of prosperity will remember, love, and 
succour their unfortunate relations and friends. 
There are many, alas ! like Pharaoh's butler, who 
forget their less favoured relations and associates 
when it is well with themselves. Such persons 
are not like Jesus, for on the very day of his 
glorious resurrection from the dead. He stood by 
Mary, and said to her — "Woman, why weepest 
thou ?" And on the same day, he drew near the 
two mournful men on their way to Emmaus, and 
said to them — " What manner of communications 
are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk 
and are sad ? " Then the same day, at evening, 
being the first day of the week, when the doors 
were shut where the disciples were assembled for 
fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the 
midst, and saith unto them — " Peace be unto 
you." 

" He who for men their surety stood 
And pour'd on earth his precious blood, 
Pursues in heaven Ms mighty plan, 
The Saviour, and the friend of man. 

" Though now ascended up on high, 
He bends on earth a brother's eye ; 
Partaker of the human name, 
j He knows the frailty of our frame." 

Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's 
daughter, and chose to suffer with, and labour for, 
his own injured and helpless people. 

3* 



36 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

AlthouQ-li George Gordon was raised far above 
liis father, his sisters, and his race generally, he 
did not, as I have shown, despise them on that 
account ; but on the contrary, he delighted to do 
them good, and associate with them. It were 
well if the same could be said, as it shonld, of 
all white and coloured persons after their ele- 
vation to posts of distinguishing wealth and 
honour. 

2nd. A great deal remains to be done for our 
fellow-creatures aiter giving them freedom. 

Like the children of Israel, all newly emanci- 
pated persons have formidable difficulties to en- 
counter. They can expect little or no sjmipathy 
from their late Pharaonic possessors. They need 
counsel, guidance, encouragement, assistance, and 
protection. You might almost as well have left 
them as they were in Egypt, as leave them to 
themselves immediately after their deliverance. 
Moses knew that, and acted accordingly; and 
George Gordon pursued a similar course, but 
alas ! he got but few even in ExCTLA^'D to sympa- 
thize with him, or aid, or cheer him on in his 
philanthropic efforts. He could, and he did edu- 
cate his sisters, and lead them on step, by step in 
the path of virtue, intelligence, and usefulness, 
after their freedom ; but he could not do so for 
the entire emancipated people of Jamaica, although 
he did lohat he could, and, perhaps, more than he 



Misunderstandings and Misrepresentations. 37 

ought to have done ; lie sacrificed his means, 
his comfort, his health, if not his life, in doing 
for the freed people of Jamaica what the British 
Government should have done for them. For 
many years he was left almost alone to cope with 
obstacles in the way of the people's improvement 
and elevation, which would have paralyzed, if not 
anniliilated, a hundred ordinary men ! Much, 
very much, yet remains to be done for the eman- 
cipated people of America and the West Indies, 
ere they can be expected to do, in all respects, for 
themselves, as those who were never in hondage 
can do. 

3rd. We may learn that ingenuous men, with 
the noblest aspirations, the loftiest designs, and 
the purest motives, may be greatly misunderstood 
and misrepresented in their business pursuits. 

Many doubtless laughed at IsToah, and called 
him a visionary, if not a fanatic, or something 
worse, while he was engaged in building the ark, 
because they could not fully comprehend the great 
ultimate object he had before his mind from day 
to day. Many wondered, and smiled in derision, 
at Mr. Gordon's diligence in business, and desig- 
nated him by not the most becoming epithets, 
because they were not imbued with his unselfish 
spirit, and were in ignorance of his principles, and 
knew nothing, experimentally, of the motives by 
which he was actuated. All who knew him in- 



38 Life of Hon. G, W. Gordon. 

timately, loved and admired him ; and if they 
blamed him at all, it was for not "being more pru- 
dently careful of his own "personal comfm^t and 
interest, and for laying out his hard earned means 
on purposes that secured nothing to himself but 
trouble and pecuniary embarrassments. But his 
so-called errors and extravagances, as a man of 
business, will be pronounced rare and splendid 
virtues by the enlightened, the generous, the 
noble, the philanthropic, and the patriotic, who 
alone can understand and appreciate them. 

''For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your 
sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty 
might be rich." 



CHAPTEE IV. 

MR. GORDON'S MATRIMONIAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE. 

The Eev. Dr. King, of London, who knew Mr. 
and Mrs. Gordon personally, and has published 
several eulogistic articles on his esteemed friends, 
states that "]Mr. Gordon married a white lady, 



i 



Personal Appearance and Marriage. 39 

wlio gave him her hand from respect to his noble 
character." There can be no doubt that Mr. 
Gordon's noble character commanded respect; 
but he possessed a fascinating personal appearance 
and gentlemanly bearing also, which could not 
fail to captivate the affection, as well as satisfy 
the judgment of a young lady of such exquisite 
taste as the then blooming, beautiful, accom- 
plished, and amiable Miss Shannon, of Kingston. 
His personnel partook more of the European than 
of the African complexion. In stature he towered 
considerably above the ordinary type of men ; 
his figure was sublimely erect and perfectly sym- 
metrical; his gait w^as very majestic; his hair 
was black as a raven; his broad, prominent brow 
rose like a tower of mental strength; his dark, 
rolling eyes, though deep and keen, were emblems 
of sincerity and loving-kindness ; his cheeks 
generally bore a faint roseate blush; his nose 
was quite void of the offensive flatness peculiar 
to some of the African tribes ; his lips were thin 
and ruby ; his teeth were fitly set and white as 
ivory ; his chin was somewhat sharp and ele- 
gantly semicircled; his smile was very sweet 
and full. A twitch of genial pleasantry generally 
played in his face, but above all one could trace, 
especially in his later years, the shadows of care 
and sorrow flitting, and sometimes sadly resting, 
on his manly countenance. Mr. Gordon's utter- 



40 Life of Eo7i. G, W. Gordon. 

ance was naturally a little liesitative, indicating 
at times a slight impediment, of which he was 
too sensitively conscious ; but when his soul was 
kindled to indignation by some base transaction 
on the part of either the Church or the State, his 
tremulous, plaintive voice would swell like the 
sound of gathering waters, and his eloquent sen- 
tences would roll from his fervid lips unre- 
strained as the rush of a mighty cataract. Mr. 
Gordon was one of the most gigantic and mus- 
cular men in Jamaica ; and in all respects he 
migbt be pronounced what George GilfiUan styles 
the gifted, eloquent, and stalwart Edward Irving, 
" A MAGNIFICENT MAX." Any lady in the world 
' might have thought herself highly honoured and 
exceedingly fortunate in getting such a hand, 
head, and heart as George William Gordon's. 

The temperament of my lamented friend was 
very sanguine and enthusiastic, if not at times, 
impetuous. He was alw^ays promptly and cheer- 
fully ready for every engagement and emergency. 
You could never find Mr. Gordon unprepared for 
any duty, sacred, secular, or civil. He was in 
this respect the most extraordinary man I ever 
knew, and others have expressed a similar opinion 
of him. When or how he prepared for the family 
altar, the counting-house, the plantation, the plat- 
form, the press, the House of Assembly, and the 
pulpit was an enigma which puzzled every body 



Mental Endovjments. 41 

that knew hiin, for lie seemed to be always per- 
fectly '' at home " in all his multifarious ofl&ces. 
"When hearing Mr. Gordon preach you would 
fancy he had nothing to do but study the Bible 
and prepare sermons ; when chairman at mission- 
ary meetings (as he often was in conjunction with 
all denominations), you would have supposed 
him the president or secretary of all the mis- 
sionary societies in the world ; when listening to 
his orations in the Colonial Parliament you 
might imagine him to be a professor of politics, 
ethics, law, political economy, philosophy, social 
reform, &c., &c., with all the honourable members 
of the house surrounding him as his students; 
some of them gaping and staring at him in 
utter amazement ; others looking furious, frantic, 
and full of envy ; and a few with their brows 
darkening, their eyes flashing, and their cheeks 
flaring with malice and revenge ; but all feeling 
themselves humbled at the feet of a champion, 
unapproachable and unconquerable by anything 

I but physical force. 

Mr. Gordon was thoroughly unique, original, 

j and out-spoken. He thought and acted for him- 
self; and, like John Knox, he feared not the 
face of man. On some occasions he displayed 

I a humorous dash of eccentricity and wit, re- 

1 sembling that of Eowland Hill or Thomas Toye. 

Ill For example, on one occasion being visiting his 



42 Life of Hon. G, F. Gordon. 

estates in St. Thomas-in-tlie-East, and staying 
over Sabbath at a town called Bath, he was sorrv 
to find the people there had no early prayer- 
meetings, such as -he was accustomed to attend 
on the morning of the Lord's-day, so getting up 
at " break of day," and standing in the centre of 
the town, Mr. Gordon shouted : Fire ! fire ! ! fire ! ! ! 
at the highest pitch of his voice. The inhabi- 
tants were startled from their slumbers, and in 
great alarm sprang from their beds, and rushed 
to the street, eagerly scanning their ow^n premises 
first, and next glancing wildly around the houses 
of their neighbours, with buckets and cans ready 
to pour water on the devouring element; but 
neither flame nor smoke could be seen in Bath 
or anywhere in its vicinity; yet Mr. Gordon con- 
tinued crying, Fire ! fire ! fire ! until an immense 
assembly had gathered around him, some of whom 
at length ventured to ask the question : " Whei^e is 
the fire, Mr. Gordon?" Laying his broad, brawny 
hand on his swelling bosom, and accommodating 
the words of the Psalmist to the occasion, Mr. 
Gordon replied : " My heart was hot within me ; 
w^hile I was musing the fire of devotion burned. 
The fire is here in my heart; and now, dear 
friends, come, let us have a prayer-meeting." A 
glorious prayer-meeting they had ; and a gracious 
outpouring of the Spirit was enjoyed, while a 
wonderful work of revival commenced that morn- 



Eccentricity and Wit. 43 

ing in Bath, when hundreds were converted, 
including one of the ministers in the neighbour- 
hood, whom I knew well. 

Mr. Gordon being on another occasion seeing 
one of his estates near Chapelton, he was present 
at an early prayer-meeting, about 5 o'clock. As 
the congregation was dismissing, a little after 
sun-rise, I remember that he accosted an entire 
stranger to him, who, it appears, was accustomed 
to take a glass of spirits every morning before 
j going to the meeting. Grasping the man very 
; firmly by the hand, and looking very earnestly in 
I! his face, he said — " Friend, you should seek the 
assistance of the Holy Spirit, and not the aid of 
j: ardent spirits, when you come to a prayer-meet- 
; ing." The man blushed and quivered, and at- 
tempted a denial ; but Mr. Gordon would accept 
' of neither a denial nor an apology, affirming that 
: he saw the unclean spirit which had entered him, 
I looking out of his eyes, and that he could even 
smell it in his very breath ; .and he most faith- 
fully and kindly warned the unfortunate man 
that the wicked practice in which he was indulg- 
ing would ruin both his soul and his body if he 
did not abstain from it. Alas ! the habit was 
not abandoned; but it grew, and it afterwards 
became the painful duty of our church to ex- 
1 communicate that man, and I deeply grieve to 
state that he has since that time died a desjraded 



44 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

drunkard. It was through the salutary influence 
of the Eev. ]\Ir. Borland, of Glasgow, who stayed 
much with Mr. Gordon, when on a furlough to 
Jamaica, some years ago, that he and others in 
the colony became stanch teetotalers. Mr. Gordon 
was most abstemious in his habits, by which he 
enjoyed excellent health, and was enabled to per- 
form more work than others who depended on 
the pernicious stimulus of rum and brandy. 

Mr. Gordon found in his devoted wife " an help- 
meet for him." Her father, Mr. Shannon, was 
an Irish gentleman, of superior scholarship and 
attainments, who, after a term of very able and 
successful editorship, died in Jamaica many years 
ago. Her mother is a highly educated English 
lady, who has for many years, by her remarkable 
talents and moral excellence, sustained a far- 
famed reputation in conducting the most efficient 
and popular seminary for young ladies in the 
island, or, perhaps, in the West Indies. I had 
frequent opportunities of visiting ]Mrs. Shannon's 
institution, and w^as always delighted with the 
thorough order and success which characterized 
every department of it. I expect one of Mr. 
Gordon's sisters will be Mrs. Shannon's successor 
in the " delightful task of rearing the tender 
thoughts, and teaching the young ideas how to 
shoot." 

As Mrs. Gordon was born in France, and edu- 



Domestic Happiness and Hospitality. 45 

cated in England, slie sometimes jocularly re- 
marked that it was difficult to know what nation 
could properly claim her, being a sort of French, 
Enghsli, Irish, Scotch Creole. She was spiritually 
born in England, in her youthful maidenhood; 
and from her blushing nuptial morning she and 
her precious husband continued, like Zacharias 
and Elisabeth, to be both righteous before God, 
walking lovingly together in all the command- 
ments and ordinances of the Lord blameless, until 
he w^as mercilessly wrenched, as if he had been 
a blood-stained traitor, from her enfeebled arms 
and bleeding heart, and dragged away by the 
assumed omnipotence of colonial pseudocracy to 
the appalling scene of his farcical trial and hor- 
rible execution. Mr. Gordon's spacious and 
elegantly furnished mansion, at Shortwood, near 
Kingston, was not only a happy home for himself 
and his " beloved wee wifie/' but a house of muni- 
ficent entertainment for '' all comers," particularly 
so for European strangers and invalids. IsTot a few 
j of the Lord's servants and people, such as Eevs. 
\ Dr. King, of London, Dr. Eobson and Mr. Borland, 
j of Glasgow, Mr. Eenton, of Kelso, Mr. Wilkinson, 
' of Chelmsford, and myself might truly say of Mr. 
; and Mrs. Gordon — "We were strangers and ye 
took us in," &c. There are hundreds who can 
testify, from delightful observation and experi- 
l ence, that a more consistently pious, generously 



46 Life of Hon, G. W. Gordon. 

hospitable and solicitously kind-hearted pair 
never presided at a '' family altar/' graced a 
domestic tahle, or smiled npon a social party than 
Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, of Jamaica. Not only 
their sunny home, but their splendid carriages 
and horses were placed at the command of their 
numerous visitors. More than once my dear wife 
and family and myself were conveyed in Mr. 
Gordon's coach to that hallowed habitation, to be 
nursed and cheered by himself and his ''minis- 
tering angel" when prostrated in mind and para- 
lyzed in body, from the effects of tropical fever 
and other debilitating influences. 

However manifold and engrossing Mr. Gordon's 
worldly engagements might be, he always found 
time for conducting morning and evening " family 
worship ;" and he went about it not as a formal 
routine of duty, but as an animating and joyous 
privilege. On these sacred occasions he not only 
read but expounded and apphed suitable portions 
of the Holy Scriptures ; and it was truly edifying 
and refreshing to hear his pertinent reflections. 
Sometimes he would propound questions for ex- 
planation, or for eliciting religious conversation 
from ministers and Christian friends who might 
happen to be present, or from Mrs. Gordon herself 
— a most profitable way of reading the Word of 
God in the family. This admirable practice 
might account, in some measure, for Mr. Gordon 



Secret and Family Prayer, 47 

being so '' mighty in the Scriptures/' and so perspi- 
cacious and felicitous in preaching, however sum- 
marily he might he required to enter the pulpit. 
He seemed like a portable fountain, ever full and 
running over. 

Mr. Gordon was baptized in a marvellous man- 
ner, with the Spirit of grace and supplication. 
In prayer, his whole soul seemed rapt, and away 
from the body and all sublunary objects, and im- 
mediately pleading with God, before the throne, 
as a child with his father. He was a princely 
li wrestler in prayer. IsTot unfrequently have I lis- 
\ tened to him, like his Lord when on earth, offer- 
ing up prayers and supplications with strong cry- 
I ing and tears, until I and all who knelt beside 
: him felt utterly unable to resist the subduing 
and melting unction which accompanied those de- 
votional ecstacies. 

Besides those domestic exercises, Mr. Gordon 
had his Bethels for secret prayer and medi- 
tation, not merely in his dwelling but among 
•his sequestered groves and wooded hills, whither 
he often resorted to commune with God and 
his own heart. A dear friend once pointed 
out to me a sweet spot, not far from his 
' residence, where he spent a whole day with his 
^heavenly Father, in prayer. Slightly varying 
[[Montgomery's beautiful hues, it might emphati- 
ally be said of Georc^e Gordon — 



48 Life of Hon. G. Tf. Gordon. 

Prayer Tras tliat Christian's vital breath, 

Thai Cliiistian's native air, 
His watcliword at the orates of death : 
He entr'd heaven with prayer. 

Mr. Gordon sometimes occupied my own pulpit 
and that of other missionaries on the Sabbath, 
when his discourses were acceptable and profitable, 
and at times delivered with such sublime elo- 
quence and thrilling pathos as delighted the intel- 
lect and warmed the heart. In addition to kindly 
oblioino; missionarv brethren, who midit be fortu- 
nate enough to secure his valuable services occa- 
sionally when on his business peregrinations, Mr. 
Gordon superintended and supported a most im- 
portant and extensive missionary enterprize, at 
his own expense, in some of the most destitute 
localities of the island, where he established 
churches and schools, with an efficient staft"" of 
missionaries and teachers, which he kept in active 
operation. I shall never forget a Sabbath which 
I spent ^\ith him in his own peculiar '' work of 
faith and labour of love," accompanied by Mrs. 
Gordon and Mr. Yinen — a most estimable Chris- 
tian 2;entleman, then residino- in Kino^ston. but 
now at home, in London, and who, like many 
others, was wickedly and barbarously treated on 
account of his attaclnnent to Mr. Gordon, and 
narrowly escaped with his life to his native 
countrv. "We started on horseback, after attend- 



A\ 



A Sahhath'day's Journey. 49 

ing an early praver-meeting, and had nearly twenty 
miles to ride to the station at Tvhich I was en- i 
gaged to preach, but the whole intervening range 
was studded with intermediate stations wliich 
required hasty visits. We galloped our horses 
on, at^ almost Jehu speed, from station to sta- 
tion, alis^htins^ at some of them for a few minutes 
while Mr. Gordon inspected his Sabbath-schools, 
&c. ; and after several abrupt but kind inquiries as 
to attendance and other matters, he would address 
a few words of approbation to some, encouragor- 
ment or perhaps reproof to others, and then Ave 
rode off to another and another station, till at 
length dear Mr. Gordon's attendants kept on '' the 
even tenor of their way," and allowed him to 
canter over his by-paths alone, through rivers and 
rocks and mud and jungle, to his sub-stations, 
but he made up to us before we reached the end 
of our journey, for he was by habit and repute 
the fleetest rider in Jamaica. The day was 
now far spent ; and, oh ! the terrible heat of the 
sun ! I felt more fit for lying down to rest than 
for preaching to that sweltering congregation. 
But after having preached, and dismissed the 
large assembly the work of the day was not 
: nearly finished. 

Mr. Gordon had his Bethesda pools to visit^ where 
I impotent folk, halt, withered, aged, sick, bereaved, 
] destitute, dying ones were anxiously awaiting his 

4 



50 Life of Hon. G. W, Gordon, 

angelic visits to trouble the waters of charity, 

patience, resignation, and comfort. His head, 

his heart, his hands and his purse were there 

harmoniously united in the Christ-hke mission of 

alleviating human woe. "When the ear heard 

him, then it blessed him ; and when the eye saw 

him, it gave witness to him, because he delivered 

the poor that cried, and the fatherless and him that 

had none to help him. The blessing of him that 

was ready to perish came upon him; and he 

caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. He 

put on righteousness and it clothed him; his 

judgment was as a robe and a diadem ; he was eyes 

to the blind, and feet was he to the lame ; he 

was a father to the poor, and the cause which he 

knew not, he searched out." Mr. Gordon was, in 

a word, A missionaky model ; and it would be 

well for Jamaica and for the world if planters, 

merchants, senators, missionaries, and clekgymen 

generally imbibed more of his disinterested spirit, 

and emulated his worthy example. 

I could quote, if necessary, many paragraphs 
from Mr. Gordon's voluminous epistles to me, 
to illustrate his unabated solicitude for the 
spiritual welfare of Jamaica, but the following 
may suffice : — 

Ehine Estate, St. Thomas-in-the-East, 
May 23, 1862. 
My dear Brother, — Althougli here^ I am very busy and 



i 



Missionary Operations, 51 

have but a few moments to spare ;* grandma' and Mr. 
Yinen are also with me — we all -iinite in kindest love and 
remembrances to you all, our dear brother and sister, and 
two dear boys. Our visit here is twofold : first, to open a 
mission station at Bath and Spring, both of which have 
been done, thanks be to God, under circumstances which 
call for devout thankfulness. 

On Sunday, the 18th, services were held at the Mission- 
ary Bethel — a temporary place of worship — and it was 
indeed a refreshing season. At five o'clock on Monday 
morning we also had worship ; on Monday evening also, 
and Tuesday, so it has been quite an interesting time, and 
we trust much good is already done. Mr. Warren, late of 
America, one of those seeking a rest here, is the temporary 
pastor, and he seems just the right man in the right place, 

under present circumstances "We need an assistant- 

teacher, bibles, tracts, hymn-books, and school-books. . . . 
We have determined on three principal stations, two of 
which are already established in St. Thomas-in-the-East ; 
this has been a neglected and dark part. May the Lord 
impart light and life, and to His name shall be great glory. 
The St. Andrew's Mission is doing well, you ^ill be glad to 
hear.f 

We have been praying for you, and for the success of 
missions, and for the Di\T.ne blessing on all the present 
meetings (the May meetings) in England, as well as for the 
success of truth in America. We are sure that our God 
hears and answers prayers, and we will call on Him con- 
tinually. 

Secondly, I have been also actively engaged in parochial 

* He sometimes styled Mrs. Gordon grandmamma, 
because I remarked the first time he introduced her to me 
that she reminded me of my dear mother, 

t It was this mission I visited, and have been just 
describing. 

4* 



52 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

and priv^ate business, we trust rendered more solid by our 
entire dependence .on the Divine blessing, . . . You know 
what I have to contend with, and yet I don't grow vreary 
nor lose courage. The Lord sustains his most tried pilgrim^ 
and he must press onward^, doing good in the midst of evil. 
The harvest is great. O, may the Lord of the harvest send 
forth labourers into the harvest. At Eural Hill and Man- 
chioneal and Linstead the people are left in a melancholy 
state ; they rest much on my mind at present. ... I have 
had a world of trouble to go through ; I am yet fighting. 
Wave after wave rolls over me, yet why should a living 
man complain ? You know I have dealt much id. faith, and 
I have found the Lord faithful, so I trust have you, there- 
fore fail not. Look in what a community I move ; think 
of the wiles and fiery darts of Satan, and then pray for me. 
0, I never felt the want of prayer so much as at present. 
I have to implore the mercy of my offended Heavenly 
Father ; He will correct me, and purge me, but he will 
not forsake me. Love to dear sister=— may the Lord 
increase her faith. 

With love, and affectionate remembrances to Mrs. F. and 
the dear little ones. 

Believe me, my dear brother, 

Yours in the best of bonds, 

G. W. Gordon. 

Mr. Gordon's letters were written during 
momentary intervals snatched from his numerous, 
and sometimes harassing engagements, hence the 
style is abrupt, unconnected, and somewhat 
jumbled. They were the spontaneous, friendly, 
and confidential utterances of the heart, intended 
for no eye but my own ; yet these documents are 
precious memorials to me, especially now, that 



Denominational Connection. 53 

my sainted friend can communicate witli me no 
more till we meet above. Some of them are 
brilliant scintillations, flashing light on his private 
and public life; others are broken effusions, 
oozings of the heart, through which the pene- 
trating eye may dimly discern the multitude of 
his thoughts within him, and the Divine comforts 
which delighted his soul, while he was a daily 
living sacrifice for years previous to the occasion 
on which he was judicially immolated at Morant 
Bay. 

]\Ir. Gordon's Christian sentiments were very 
broad and catholic. In a religious sense he 
was a cosmopolitan. All sections claimed and 
enjoyed his good offices. He looked more to the 
piety and usefulness of ministers and people than 
to their creed or form of Church government. 
He patronized sterling worth w^herever he found 
it, but he as heartily abhorred the want of it, 
especially among ministers and professing Chris- 
tians. He was denominationally an elder of 
the United Presbyterian Church at Kingston, 
which his sisters and his mother-in-law still attend ; 
but both he and Mrs. Gordon often attended the 
ministry of the Eev. Mr. Gardiner, of the London 
Missionary Society, when I was in Jamaica, 
chieflv because of their admiration of the catholic 
constitution and principles of that noble and 
honoured institution. After a time, however, lie 



54 Life of Hon. G. W, Gordon, 

discovered to liis sorrow that the missionary 
representative of the society was anything but 
liberal and large-hearted in his views. Mr. 
Gordon most consciantiously came to the con- 
clusion that immersion was the scriptural mode 
^ of baptism, consequently he was publicly baptized 
in that way by the Eev. ]\Ir. Phillippo, of Spanish 
Town; but he did not formally join the Baptist 
denomination. Ever after taking that step he 
thought himself coldly treated by Mr. Gardiner, 
and for that and other important reasons he was 
less regular than before in his attendance on that 
gentleman's ministrations ; and the public press 
has lately proved that Mr. Gordon had, alas ! 
too much reason for the unfavourable opinion 
which he had formed. 

The following reflections are suggested from 
Mr. Gordon's matrimonial and religious life : — 

1st. Men of business may be men of distin- 
guished piety. " Not slothful in business, fervent 
in spirit, serving the Lord," is the scriptural rule for 
men of all professions and trades. Adam, Abel, 
Enochs Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, 
Job, David, Daniel, the Apostles, and our adora- 
ble Lord Himself attended to their secular avoca- 
tions ; and their daily piety comported most con- 
gruously with the faithful discharge of the ordinary 
duties of life. A gentleman of most extensive 
business in England, with whom I stayed for a 



Practical Religion. 55 

fortnight some time ago, told me that but for his 
religion he could not have so long endured the 
" tear and ^^ear" of his complicated and harassing 
business. The evening and morning dews of the 
Spirit which fell at the hour of family prayer, 
cooled, lubricated, and invigorated his chafed and 
fevered frame — bv thus waitino- on the Lord he 
renewed his strength from day to day. Mr. Gor- 
don found it quite compatible with his position 
and pursuits as a merchant, a planter, and a 
statesman, to profess and consistently exemplify 
Christianity in private and in public. Why 
should there not be a church in every house ? '' a 
little sanctuary in the dwellings of Jacob" ? With- 
out these little limpid rills of devotion running 
from the family altar to the public assemblies of 
Zion, the tide of vital godliness will never rise 
high enough to saturate our community or cover 
our world, however excellent our organizations for 
the spread of the Gospel may be. 

2nd, The best of men may experience heavy 
trials in the faithful discharge of Christian duty. 
Our Saviour was despised and rejected of men ; 
a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 
He came to His own with love in His heart and 
salvation in His hand ; but His own received 
Him not. Many of them said — " He hath a 
devil and is mad ;" others said — '' Behold a man 
gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of pub- 



56 Life of Hon. G. W, Gordon, 

licans and sinners ; " and when He, who went about 
continnally doing good, could be endured no longer, 
all cried out, saying, '' Away with Him ! away 
with Him! crucify Him! crucify Him!" It is 
enough for the disciple that he be as his Master, 
and the servant as his Lord. " If they have called 
the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much 
more shall they call them of His household?" 
The life of any one in the whole '' household of 
faith," before and since those words were uttered, 
will illustrate their meaning. If we select " Paul 
the aged" as perhaps the most distinguished repre- 
sentative of the Lord's servants, we shall find his 
experience and sentiments according exactly with 
the foregoing statement. The holy and devoted 
man says — *' I suppose I was not a whit behind 

the very chiefest apostles in labours more 

abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons 
more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five 
times received I forty stripes save one ; thrice w^as 
I beaten with rods ; once was I stoned ; thrice I 
suffered shipwreck ; a night and day I have been 
in the deep ; in journey ings often ; in perils of 
water, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own 
countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in 
the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in 
the sea, in perils among false brethren ; in weari- 
ness and painfulness, in watchings often ; in hun- 
ger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and 



Bearing the Cross. 57 

nakedness. In Damascus the Governor under 
Aretas, the king, kept the city with a garrison, 
desirous to apprehend me ; and through a win- 
dow, in a basket, was I let down by the wall, and 
escaped his hands." Bravo, Paul ! Why did not 
thy noble " brother and companion in tribulation ' 
follow thy example, and escape the violence of 
the Governor under Victoria ? It was easy for 
flippant orators and vindictive governors to say of 
Paul, and also of Gordon — " We have found this 
man a pestilent fellow, a ringleader, a mover of 
sedition, &c. ;" but the latter could truthfully have 
replied, in the words of the former — " Neither 
can they prove the things whereof they now ac- 
cuse me." Mr. Gordon lived, moved, and had his 
being only to glorify God, and benefit his fellow- 
creatures ; yet he was reprobated as a hypocrite, 
a fool, a rebel, a traitor ; defamed, persecuted, and 
made as the filth of the earth, and the off-scour- 
ing of all things, by the official representatives, 
not of a heathen, but of a Christian Queen and 
people ! 

3rd. As many men of business are frequently 
travelling from home, it is very important to con- 
sider how they should improve their time on such 
occasions. Multitudes now-a-days spend a con- 
siderable portion! of precious time in steam-boats, 
railway-carriages, commercial hotels, &c., where 
many opportunities are presented, and may be 



58 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

embraced for doing good or evil. The emissaries 
of Satan are generally actively engaged when from 
home. Then it is especially that they neither fear 
God nor regard man. By foul-mouthed language, 
immodest gestures, and licentious practices, they 
are ever and anon sowing the wind or reaping the 
whirlwind of iniquity. It is hard to be in juxta- 
position with them in the carriage, the saloon, or 
the inn, without being to some extent contami- 
nated. They leave the adhesive slime of the old 
serpent behind them wherever they sit, or bait, or 
sleep. The quiet, meditative class of travellers 
occupy their time very pleasantly and profitably 
in reading, and making useful reflections on all 
they see and hear. They find " tongues in trees, 
books in running brooks, and good in everything." 
These intellectual bees gather honey all the day 
from every meadow, and moor, and mountain, 
and rock, and stream they pass — they only 
think when travelling, and talk when they get 
home. 

There are others, again, who feel it "more blessed 
to give than to receive." They have religious 
tracts — messengers of peace with them, not only 
to peruse, but to give away. They are surveying 
countenances, for the purpose of descrying the 
sons and daughters of sorrow, and care, and woe, 
that they may have the luxury of offering them a 
suitable tract : a few kind words fitly spoken— 



Travellers doing good. 59 

" apples of gold in pictures of silver." They diffuse 
a reviving spiritual fragrance wherever they go : 
their scent is as the wine of Lebanon. They es- 
teem the privilege of doing good to others more 
than their necessary food. Christ was such a 
traveller. He must needs go through Samaria 
and sit down wearied with His journey on Jacob's 
well, not to meditate, but to instruct and save a 
poor ignorant sinner. It was when He was on 
His journey to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, that 
the woman of Canaan came and cried to Him, 
saying, " Have mercy on me, Lord, thou Son of 
David!'' and to whom, after a very remarkable 
interview. He said, " woman, great is thy faith ; 
be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Was not 
Jesus on a journey when He said to blind Barti- 
meus, "What wilt thou that I should do unto 
thee ?" It was as the good Samaritan journeyed, 
that he came to the man who fell among the 
thieves, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil 
and wine, and set him on his own beast and 
brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 
"Go," says Christ, to every traveller and frequenter 
of inns, " and do thou likewise." George Gordon 
was emphatically such a traveller. He improved 
every opportunity for doing good to the souls and 
the bodies of his fellow-creatures when from home, 
as he often had occasion to be, on business and 
official duties. 



60 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon, 

*' Lives of great men all remind us 
"We can make our lives sublime ; 
And, departing, leave behind us. 
Footprints on the sands of time. 

" Footprints, that perhaps another, 
Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 
Seeing, shall take heait again :'' 



CHAPTEE V 



THE GREAT '' JAMAICA EEVIVAL," A^^D THE PAKT 
MR. GORDON TOOK IN IT. 



In 1859, the year of the Eevival in Ireland, I 
was obliged to return to my native land, tliroiigli 
failure of health, occasioned by over-exertion, and 
the prostrating influence of the West Indian cli- 
mate. After wandering about from place to place, 
for nine months, to recruit my wasted energies, I 
thought myself convalescent, and ready for active 
service again ; but neither my medical adviser, nor 
the Directors of the London Missionary Society, nor 
any of my friends, would sanction my return to 



Self-examination, Fasting, and Prayer. 61 

Jamaica, naturally concluding that the same 
causes wonld produce similar effects. For a 
time I endeavoured, with a sorrowful heart, to 
withdraw my sympathies from the foreign field 
of labour, and fix on work at home ; but a " still 
[ small voice" told me that my work in Jamaica 
' was not yet finished, and that I must go back and 
see greater things than I had yet witnessed. After 
mature and prayerful consideration, I arrived at 
the conclusion that the path of duty evidently 
1 lay across the Atlantic to my old field at Chapel- 
< ton, and that I must walk by faith, not by 
,11 sight this time. I resolved accordingly to pay 
I the passage-money myself, and ask for no guaran- 
j teed salary from the Mission Board, and commu- 
. nicated my intention to my esteemed friend, the 
Eev. Dr. Tidman, the foreign secretary of the 
society. AVhen we arrived at our old station, we 
were grieved to find that matters had lamentably 
deteriorated during our absence : it was a great 
trial to our faith. As I had spent much time 
during the voyage in devising new plans of ope-= 
ration, and in wrestling prayer for the Divine 
blessing, I was enabled to hope, as it were^ 
against hope ; and my patience was not severely 
tested. I proposed to my people that we should, 
as a congregation, set apart a whole day for self- 
examination, fasting, humiliation, and prayer, to 
which they accorded a most encouraging response. 



62 Life of Eon. G. W. Gordon. 

I addressed tliem that day from Malachi iii. 10, 
'' Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, 
if I will not open the windows of heaven, and 
pour you out a blessing that there shall not be 
room enough to receive it." I told the people 
that I meant to prove God, and hoped they would 
do the same, by effectual, fervent prayer, • in pri- 
vate and in public. We agreed to double the 
number of our stated weekly prayer meetings, 
and then we found the attendance increased ten- 
fold. Soon an earnest desire was expressed by 
tlie people themselves for a prayer meeting every 
evening and morning, to which I heartily acceded, 
when the attendance became overflowing. Xot 
content with the crowded meetings in the sanc- 
tuary, district prayer meetings were craved and 
organized in the open air, and in private residences 
throughout the neighbourhood, until the whole 
country-side became vocal with the voice of 
prayer and praise. The '' spirit of grace and sup- 
plication" was abundantly poured out on the in- 
habitants. As soon as Zion travailed sLe brought 
forth her children. On Saturdaj^, IsTovember 1 0th 
1860, 1 preached for the first time in the Market- 
place, when a man, named Buncher, was made 
the subject of extraordinary conviction of sin. 
He cried aloud for mercy, and fell prone on the 
ground before me, in great mental agony, which 
caused much commotion. That was the first 



Three Hundred Conversions. 63 

striking manifestation of the mighty ^vork which 
ensued. It was on the Tuesday evening following 
that the Holy Ghost fell on all who were present 
at the prayer meeting in the chapel. That was 
the most solemn scene I ever witnessed. Men, 
women, and children continued to weep, and wail, 
and agonize for their sins all night ; and there 
they continued, with little intermission, for nearly 
a week, wrestling with God for mercy, and re- 
solved not to let Him go without the blessing. 
Thus, they at length proved God, and He literally 
poured out a blessing that there was not room 
enough in their souls to contain. They were 
made to '' rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of 
glory"; the Lord emphatically "girded them with 
gladness." About 300 solemnly professed that 
they were savingly converted there during that 
ever-memorable week. The converts were formed 
at once, on a profession of their belief and expe- 
rience, into a general class of candidates for 
Church- fellowship. From that class I was enabled 
to introduce 140 new members to the communion 
table on the first Sabbath of January, 1861; 
others were received, from time to time, after- 
wards ; while some, who made a profession of 
repentance and faith, proved their insincerity by 
relapsing into their accustomed habits of negli- 
gence and immorality. The people were careful 
not to offer themselves for Church-fellowship until 



64 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

they had '' ceased to do evil and learned to well." 
Those who found peace in believing became in- 
tensely anxious for the salvation of others ; and 
many of them spent weeks together in the Christ- 
like mission of seeking out the wanderers and 
the lost, and beseeching them, with many tears, 
to return to God. My people, unasked, raised, 
among themselves, a liberal sum of money to 
procure decent clothes for poor people, who had 
not becoming apparel for attending the public or- 
dinances of religion ; while their regular contri- 
butions for religious purposes were spontaneously 
increased twofold, so that the entire receipts 
amounted, for that year, to nearly £500. Thus, 
all my personal and domestic wants were as well 
supplied by the voluntary contributions of the 
people as they had formerly been by the stipulated 
salary of the parent society. Being, by night 
and by day, overpowered by the delightful work, 
my strength began to fail, and I was advised to 
leave the scene of excitement, and rest awhile. 
The Eev. C. H. Hall, the Eector of Clarendon, 
who had always been very friendly and kind to 
me, now offered to conduct the daily meetings in 
our chapel for me, in my absence ; and, moreover, 
he handsomely placed his own carriage and horses 
at my command. I was advised to retire to the 
bracing climate of Manchester; and thither I 
went, to the hospitable manse of my beloved 



Share in the great " Jaraaica Revival!' 6 5 

'friend, the Eev. Mr. Renton, at Mount Olivet, 
where he and his amiable and estimable wife 
gave me a thoroughly Scottish welcome, and did 
all that could be done, by kindest looks and 
words and acts for my good. Never did I meet 
with more genuinely true-hearted friends than that 
now sainted couple. The sw^eet and hallowed 
w^eek I spent in their fellowship will be remem- 
bered with solemn joy, while I remain on earth, 
and looked back to with delight after reunion 
with our cherished ones in the " Father's house 
of many mansions." 

The climate of Mount Olivet felt delightfully 
cool and grateful. After being cheered and 
soothed by every possible means, I went to bed 
early the first night, calculating on the rare 
luxury of a long, sound sleep, such as I had not 
once enjoyed since the Eevival commenced ; but 
to my astonishment I heard the church bell 
ringing hard, about three hours after my lying 
dow^n in bed ; then foUow^ed the solemn sound of 
a multitude engaged in praise and prayer. After 
lying for some time listening to the sacred melody, 
I got up, struck a match, looked at my watch, and 
it was one o'clock. I went to bed again, but 
could not sleep : it was the Eevival. I dressed 
and went out to Mr. Eenton's church, and found 
it crammed. The ''spirit of grace and supplication " 
was there poured out in marvellous effusion — I 



6 6 Life of Hon. G, TT. Gordon, 

confess that I ne\*er heard such beautiful, earnest, 
melting prayers as those to which I listened in 
that congregation. It Tras not so much the weep- 
ing and wailing of sinners, as God's people pour- 
ing out their overflowing hearts simultaneously to 
Him. These dear people had, like the Marys, 
risen and come away while it was yet dark ; for 
many of them came from afar, throuo^h dangerous 
defiles, groping their way to the house of prayer, 
where they all continued with one accord, until 
the morning sun warned them that they had 
manual duties to discharge in the field, and 
household engagements which ^ required their 
attention. It was with the greatest difficulty 
that Mr. and Mrs. Eenton could prevail upon 
these people to descend, morning after morning, 
from that mount of glory and Divine communion. 
Each one felt like the disciples on the mount of 
transfioTiration, when Peter said : " Lord, it is 2:ood 
for us to be here, if Thou wilt let us make here 
three tabernacles." Many of them, indeed, would 
have been glad to ascend from the top of that 
Olivet, to be with Christ and return no more to 
the poor, perishing things of the world. I re- 
member that as I rode along one day in the 
neighbourhood of Mr. Eenton's station, I over- 
took a black man, with whom I entered into 
conversation. Observing a large and beautiful 
mansion on an eminence near by, I asked him 



Share in the great " Jamaica Revival!' 6 7 

what gentleman's seat it was, when to my as- 
tonishment he replied, '' Minister, it is mine : for 
years I laboured hard to get that? house erected ; 
it was my idol; it had all my heart, and I 
thought it very beautiful; now God has shown 
me that house not made with hands eternal in 
the heavens, my mind is lifted above my earthly 
house — it is not my idol now, but my lodging." 
The gracious w^ork had overspread almost every 
part of Jamaica, ere it began in Kingston, and 
yet the ministers of that city were offering special 
prayers to -God* for a share of the general baptism 
of the Spirit : only they were making conditions 
and drawing plans for God as to the way of 
operation. One would propose that it must be a 
work quiet and still as the dew — another would 
suggest that there should be no late meetings — a 
third would significantly hint that there must be 
no stricken ones and so forth, which seemed like 
prescribing rules for the wind, ignoring the fact 
that it blowe.th where and as it listeth ; and that 
so is every one that is born of the Spirit, But 
God will work in His own way in the spiritual 
world as He does in the natural world ; and it 
is our wisdom not to dictate, but gladly, submit 
to His will in all things. 

Being in Kingston attending the annual meet- 
ing of our missionary brethren, Mr. Gordon 
suggested that special services should be lield in 

5* 



68 Life of Hon, G. W. Gmxlon. 

the city. He and the brethren from the country 
who had tasted and seen the goodness of the 
Eevival, felt sad at the spiritual apathy which 
prevailed in all the city churches. No minister 
in the place would give the use of a meeting- 
house without laying down conditions about the 
way the Spirit must convince and convert sinners. 
I proposed to Mr. Gordon a meeting in the open 
air, where we might be as untrammelled as the 
sea breezes ; he announced for a meeting accord- 
ingly on the Parade, and a glorious one it was. 
We stood on the steps of the theatre, facing an 
immense multitude, comprising all classes of the 
community, and preached to them the glorious 
Gospel of the blessed God. As many seemed un- 
willing to depart at the close of the service, I 
felt satisfied tl;at the work of con\dction had been 
commenced in their hearts, and told all who felt 
anxious about their souls to meet me in Mr. 
Gordon's Tabernacle next day, at 11 o'clock; 
and there I found several persons in the deepest 
anguish, crying for mercy. The words preached 
from the steps of the theatre from Matthew xxv. 
10, "And the door was shut," had stuck like a 
pointed arrow in the heart all night. The Taber- 
nacle soon became crowded inside and outside, as 
they say, hundreds being unaible to get near the 
door. The Holy Ghost descended in His mighty 
influences on that dense mass of people, so that 



Sheer e in the great ^^ Jamaica Revival.'' 69 

tbxere was nothing for Mr. Gordon and myself to 
do but stand by and see the salvation of God. 
Thousands were pricked in their hearts, and look- 
ing on Him whom they had pierced, and mourning 
for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and in 
bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for 
his first-born. Confessions of the most heinous sins 
were made by some aloud in public, with an expres- 
sion of earnestness and candour which showed that 
they evidently felt a power more than human 
constraining their minds. They just felt that the 
Bible was true — that they had inestimably pre- 
cious souls to be lost or saved eternally — that 
sin was a tremendous reality and not a figment, — 
that hell was a terrible fact, and not a mythic 
bugbear, and that it would not profit a man if he 
should gain the whole world and lose his 
immortal soul : and who could wonder that 
they were in stern anxiety a^bout their eternal 
interests ? The great work begun in j\Ir. Gor- 
don's Tabernacle, spread like fire through the 
city and its vicinity ; but the ministers, ^^dth 
a few honourable exceptions, stood coldly aloof 
from it, because it began not with themselves, and 
according to their preconceived notions and pre- 
concerted regulations, so that dear Mr. and Mrs. 
Gordon were left almost alone to superintend the 
work. For weeks together they v/ere almost night 
and day among the anxious and the saved in the 



70 Lif6 of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

Tabernacle, and in their own homes ministering 
to their spiritual necessities. But they could not 
overtake the whole work ; the harvest was too 
great for them to reap, and in many cases the 
awakened multitudes were left to themselves, and 
very naturally ran to excesses in their enthusiasm, 
w^hich prepared the way by which the animad- 
version of the Colonial Press was directed, not so 
much against the indiscretions, as against the whole 
work itself, designating it by some of the most 
opprobious epithets in our language. It must be 
confessed, that there was much chaff mixed up 
with the wheat ; and that some of the people who 
in their excitement were left to themselves, com- 
mitted extravagances not to be justified, but 
rather deplored ; still- in every instance where the 
minister threw his soul into the 'work and judi- 
ciously counselled and guided the people, a glorious 
harvest was reaped, with nothing in the conduct 
of the awakened ones to regret, but rather to com- 
mend and imitate. There were extraordinary pros- 
trations, which, as in the Irish Eevival, still remain 
an inexplicable mystery .to the most profound 
philosopheis ; and not a few phenomena appea-red 
in connection with the movement, which might 
be termed supernatural, and these only go to 
prove that the work was not of mai^ 

The Eevival in Jamaica will ever be regarded 
as one of the most remarkable eras in the history 



Share in the great ''Jamaica 'Revival^ 71 

of the colony, during which blessings were 
graciously shed among all classes of the com- 
munity, the full value of which the light of eter- 
nity alone can reveal. It was, indeed, a time of 
merciful visitation to ministers and people ; 
would that all had properly improved it ! 

By a memorable and interesting coincidence, 
the Eoyal Family will always be associated in the 
minds of the emancipated people with the Jamaica 
Eevival. They have always loved, yea, almost 
adored, Her Majesty the Queen. They never can 
forget that on the 1st August, 1838, when the 
crown had just been placed on the youthful and 
graceful brow of Queen Victoria, all the slaves in 
her dominions, numbering about 800,000, were 
made/2^% (^'^clfor ever free ! The news that her 
Majesty's royal and gallant son. Prince Alfred, 
was soon to visit their verdant shores, struck a 
chord of joy which vibrated through every home 
and heart in the island. It was truly a thrilling 
gala-day to many thousands who had not the pri- 
vilege of gazing on the royal and intrepid youth 
when they learned that he was " for true " in Ja- 
maica. The " Prince ! " " the Prince ! " " the Prince ! " 
was in every heart and mouth, beloved especially 
as the son of their '' Dear Mother Qiceen.'' Many 
sincere and hearty prayers were offered at the 
Eevival Meetings for the young Prince, that the 
Lord would protect and guide him, and make him 



72 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

a worthy son of his great and good father and 
mother. At Kingston the usual prayer-meetings 
were generally discontinued, except in the Taber» 
nacle, on the arrival of His Eoyal Highness ; and 
arrangements were made, on a superb scale, for a 
splendid ball, which, in the peculiar circumstances 
of the country at the time, did not seem becom- 
ing, nor show (to say the least of it) good taste, 
however loyal and loving the principles and dis- 
positions from which the contemplated demonstra- 
tion originated. Many of the Lord's servants and 
people were grieved and smitten with shame when 
they learned that in Kingston prayer-meetings 
were suspended, and the coming and work of the 
Holy Spirit neglected, and the Prince of Peace 
apparently cast into the shade by Prince Alfred. 
Many prayers were offered beseeching God in 
some way to prevent such an incongruity 
as a grand ball, while many thousands were 
weeping and wailing for their sins in the 
city and in all parts of the island ; and their 
prayers were speedily answered, for the ball did 
not take place. A mournful event had just oc- 
curred at home which called the Eoyal Family 
and the nation to weeping, and not dancing — the 
sad intelligence reached Prince Alfred, a day or 
so before the anticipated ball was to come off, 
that his beloved grandmother was no more ; upon 
which he retired immediately to his cabin to join 






Share in the great ^^ Jamaica Revival. ^^ 73 

in spirit with his bereaved and sorrowing mother 
and brothers and sisters, and return to England 
with all the speed which natural affection and 
princely. resources could command. 

Many intelligent students of Scripture acknow- 
ledged that the Eevival was the best comment they 
had ever found on certain portions of the Bible, 
which, up till that event, had been but obscurely 
understood by them. I remember the Sector of 
our parish telling me how he never saw the full 
meaning and beauty, nor felt the force, nor tasted 
the sweetness of many passages of the Word of 
God, and of the religious hymns he was wont to 
sing, until he saw, and read and sang them under 
the hght and influence of the Eevival. The case 
of Kingston especially illustrated such phraseo- 
logy in reference to the Divine Spirit, as — '' My 
Spirit shall not always strive with man ;" " Grieve 
not the Holy Spirit of God ;" " Quench not the 
Spirit," &c. The fire of the Spirit was quenched; 
but the fire of judgment was soon kindled, and it 
has not yet been extinguished, in that woful city. 
First, a most mysterious and appalling fire broke 
out, which consumed the principal places of busi- 
ness, and burnt out two editors' offices, who had 
characterized the work of God as an " intolerable 
nuisance !" How the great fire originated is still 
a riddle ; then followed the commercial panic ; 
after that the famine, and so on, one calamity at 



74 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

the heels of another, has been overtaking that 
devoted place ever since, reminding one of the 
doomed city over which the Saviour wept, saying, 
" If thou hadst known even thou, at least in this 
thy day, the things* which belong unto thy peace 1 
but now they are hid from thine eyes ; for the 
days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies 
shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee 
round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall 
lav thee even with the ground, and thv children 
within thee, because thou knewest not the time of 
thy visitation." 

From the subject of this chapter the following 
lessons may be learned : — 

1st. The importance of faith and prayer as 
appointed and appropriate means of blessing to 
the church and to the world. 

Some said that the Eevival was the work of 
the devil ; but surely that evil spirit would not 
drive men from their sins to seek mercy, and 
speak against himself and his service, and in 
favour of Christ and salvation. " If Satan cast 
out Satan, he is divided against himself; how 
shall then his kingdom stand ? " Others styled 
the Eevival the '' sin-sickness," declaring that it 
was .infectious or '' catching!' This might arise 
from the fact that some persons came to Eevival 
meetings to gratify their curiosity, or to make a 
mock at the stricken ones, but remained to pray 



Share in tlie great ^^ Jamaica Revival, 75 

and weep. I could name intelligent men — 
white as well as black — who came to our meet- 
ings with their minds prejudiced and indignantly 
opposed to the whole proceedings, who could 
not return home for a week, but sat or knelt 
there, weeping like children night and day for 
their sins. Still, thousands were awakened in 
their own homes — constrained to rise at mid- 
night from their beds to plead for mercy ; and 
hundreds were compelled to leave their labours 
in the fields at midday to wrestle and agonize in 
prayer and supplication. Such effects were not 
produced by the contagious influence of excite- 
ment, although it must be admitted that in not 
a few instances a liighly nervous temperament, 
intensified by the affecting scenes presented, 
might be susceptible of "prostrations," and 
"trances,'' or '' swoonings," from' merely natural 
causes. Being fully convinced in my own mind 
that the Ee^ival was the work of the Holy 
Spirit, which depended not upon physical circum- 
stances, I went on one occasion in the strength 
of faith to a densely populated district, called 
Brown's Hall, in the Parish of St. John, in which 
parish a case of Eevival had never been seen, 
assured that the good work might begin j;here, 
or anywhere, without the people seeing any one 
stricken or under the power of conviction. I 
preached twice on the Sabbath, and urged the 



K 



6 Life of Son. G. W. Gordon. 



careless people to pray to God for a blessing, and 
it would come ; but they only smiled at me, and 
told me the Eevival would come by-and-by, as 
it was then within sixteen miles of them. They 
imagined it would come rolling along like the 
tide, covering all the intervening space before it 
reached them. I stayed with them on Monday, 
preaching twice, but without the slightest indica- 
tion of success. I knew the people were not 
praying as I wished them. I remained with 
them on Tuesday without seeing the least fruits 
of my labours ; my faith was indeed beginning 
to stagger, especially as a very intelligent man — 
the teacher of the place — very coolly told me 
that I need not expect to see the people of 
Brown's Hall weeping like silly children ; they 
were determined to stand out against it. Ah ! 
they were greatly attached to their sins, for it 
was one of the most notoriously wicked districts 
in Jamaica. I could only spare one day more 
for them. We met very early on Wednesday 
morm'ng ; the place was crowded, but not a soul 
awakened. We assembled again in the evening ; 
it must be my last — was I doomed to leave dis- 
appointed and dejected? The chapel was packed 
with^ earnest worshippers ; I preached with very 
conflicting feelings, and apparently in vain, for 
not one was moved. I then asked the congrega- 
tion to remain for an hour together in prayer and 



Share in the great ''Jamaica. Revival!' 77 

supplication while I retired to my lodgings. 
They did as I desired them ; and while they 
prayed in concert I prayed in secret, and returned 
to preach for the last time. In less than an hour 
after that the Holy Ghost fell on all present. The 
sceptical teacher was the very first whose heart 
was melted ; he and all assembled there wept 
bitterly and cried aloud for mercy, and speedily 
the whole of that moral desert rejoiced and 
blossomed as the rose. " All tilings are possible 
to Him that believeth." " According to your faith 
be it unto you." 

2nd. We may learn how soon the whole world 
might be converted to God. 

At present there is a great, though silent, pre- 
paratory work going on. The sacred Scriptures 
are being translated into every language, and 
circulated in every region of the known world. 
Human nature is the same everywhere, whatever 
may be the complexion of the skin which covers 
it. The Holy Spirit operates on the mind of the 
black man exactly as He operates on the mind of 
the white man. The Jamaica Eevival has de- 
monstrated this fact, for in all its leading features 
it corresponded strikingly with the great Eevivals 
at home. 

" Fleecy locks and black complexion 
Cannot forfeit nature's claim ; 
Skins may differ, but affection 

Dwells in white an^ black the same." 



78 Life of Ho7i. 0. W. Gordon, 

In the light of these spiritual dispensations "we 
may see how a nation can be born at once, and 
what the prophecy in Isaiah meaneth — " Behold, 
thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not ; 
and nations that knew not thee shall run unto 
thee, because of the Lord thy God, and for the 
Holy One of Israel ; for He hath glorified thee/' 
At the rate of conversion in . Jamaica during the 
Eevival, the whole world might, by a .similar visi- 
tation be converted in a few weeks, with or ivith- 
out missionaries. The people could not be restrained 
from praying and preaching, and turning to God 
even when there was no minister to exhort them, 
^rhen the Spirit is poured out upon all flesh, and 
the Lord makes bare His holy arm in the eyes of 
all the nations, how easy it will be then for 
all the ends of the earth to see the salvation of 
God! 

3rd. We may infer from this chapter how ter- 
rible the agonies which lost souls must endure in 
perdition. No one could witness the multitudes 
who were plunged in distress during the Jamaica 
Eevival, without the firm conviction that they 
were really in earnest. There was no visible 
hand laid on any of them; their temporal mer- 
cies were not destroyed nor impaired ; their friends 
were around them ; their ministers stood in their 
midst, endeavouring to comfort them ; the throne 
of grace was accessible to them; the Bible, with 



Share in the great ^'Jamaica Revival!^ 79 

all its encouraging invitations and cheering pro- 
mises, was before them ; the fountain opened for 
sin and uncleanness was in their presence, and 
they were all directed to the Lamb of God : yet 
they experienced agony of spirit which neither 
tongue nor pen can ever .describe. As I stood in 
awe, beholding and hearing those heart-rending 
expressions of mental misery, I could understand 
better than I had ever done before, what our Lord 
desired to impress deeply on the minds of His 
hearers when He said, "There shall be weeping 
and gnashing of teeth when ye shall see Abraham 
and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets in the 
kingdom of God, and you yourself thrust out. 
The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and 
they shall gather out of His kingdom all things, 
that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall 
cast them into a furnace of fire; Jbhere shall be 
waihng and gnashing of teeth. Then shall they 
begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to 
the hills. Cover us ; for if they do these things in 
the green tree, what shall be done in the dry V 
0, if sinners can endure such anguish in the 
House of Prayer, where Jesus says, " Come unto 
me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and 
I will give you rest,'' what must they feel on 
the Day of Judgment, when they stand on the 
left hand, and hear Him utter the awful sentence, 
" Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, 



80 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordo^i. 

prepared for the devil and his angels ! " " Behold, 
He Cometh with clouds ; and every eye shall see 
Him, and they also which pierced Him ; and all 
kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. 
Even so, Amen." ' 



CHAPTEE VI. 



MR. GORDON'S POLITICAL LIFE. 



The political career of Mr. Gordon has, for some 
time past, engaged a large share of attention 
among all classes. In this capacity he has been 
the subject of animated debate among peers and 
baronets, judges and barristers, merchants and 
mechanics, ministers and missionaries. His cha- 
racter and sentiments have been keenly scrutinized 
and discussed in the drawing-room, the nursery, 
the factory, the railway-carriage, the steamboat, 
and the hotel. The daily, weekly, monthly, and 
quarterly journals have all been commenting 
vehemently on poor Gordon. Some have de- 
nounced him a hypocrite, others have branded 
him as a rebel, while a few have pitied him as a 



Mr. Gordon's Political Life, 81 

fool, or a fanatic. Clergymen and missionaries, 
for a season, lent the influence of their sacred 
office to tarnish his reputation, and united with 
the men of civil power in their craven howl — 
'' Away with such a fellow from the earth !" 
Several heroic spirits bravely " set their face as a 
flint " against the torrent of abuse which rolled 
against the name and the deeds of him who was 
not allowed to defend himself ; and they have 
nobly stemmed the foul current, and turned it 
back to its quaggy source. 

Mr. Gordon became a politician from a stern 
sense of duty, and not from any inherent inclina- 
tion or aptness for such a sphere. When the 
path of duty clearly appeared to him, he pursued 
it with all the energy and enthusiasm peculiar to 
his idiosyncrasy, whether agreeable to his taste or 
not. He acquired great renown throughout the 
whole of Jamaica as a fearless champion for truth 
and justice, and the uncompromising antagonist 
of official jobbery and legislative roguery. He 
manfully opposed such enactments as were in- 
tended and calculated to promote the interests, 
civil or sacred, of only minor portions of the com- 
munity, at the expense and detriment of the gene- 
ral public ; consequently, he incurred the virulent 
hatred and hostility of the abetters of selfishness 
and maladministration. He paid a high price for 
his mental freedom, and, having once obtained it, 

6 



82 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

he stood fast therein. As a reformer, his duties 
were very onerous and trying, and lie had but few 
real coadjutors. He filled with fidelity and honour 
the important office of Justice of the Peace for 
several parishes, during many years previous to 
the arrival of Governor Eyre, who, about five 
years ago, accomplished his degradation, for the 
conscientious discharge of his duty as a man, a 
magistrate, and a Christian. Then originated a 
painful controversy, which, when viewed in con- 
nection with the animus of Mr. Eyre, immediately 
before and after his noble victim had been sacri- 
ficed, is, to my mind, the darkest blot on his dis- 
graced escutcheon. Mr. Gordon was as unjustly 
deprived of his magisterial commission as he was 
of his life. The influence of the colonial press, 
and the force of public opinion, aroused to 
a universal storm of indignation, at length com- 
pelled the governor to restore Mr. Gordon to his 
former position as a magistrate ; but he cannot 
now restore him to his heart-broken wife, or to a 
sorrowing world ! 

Many of the letters in my possession will bring 
out Mr. Gordon's political sentiments and charac- 
ter better than I can describe them. Some of 
them will not merely show that his representa- 
tions of matters were true, but that, if they had 
been heeded by the Colonial and the Home Go- 
vernment (as they ought to have been), the whole 



Mr. Gordon's Political Life. 83 

of tlie Morant Bay tragedies, with their fearful 
train of consequences, might have been averted. 
The commencement of these calamitous events 
was but the natural result of the state of things 
which I witnessed in Jamaica many years ago. 
Indeed, I kindly told some of the local authori- 
ties (whom I could name if necessary), nine years 
ago, that a continuation of their conduct would 
sooner or later issue in murderous retaliation ; and 
my wonder is that there has not been an outbreak 
in every parish of Jamaica, similar to that which 
unhappily occurred in its eastern district. The 
extracts from Mr. Gordon's communications, as 
remote as the year 1862, will show to the world 
the work he had to do, and how loyally and con- 
stitutionally he wished it done, as well as the 
great obstacles which lay in his way : — 

Kingston, 8th July, 1862. 

My dear Beother,— I had the pleasure of writing you 
last mail, since which I have had many things pressing on 
me, and many difficulties to contend with ; but in the 
midst of them all the Lord has sustained me ! I now 
enclose you further copies of correspondence, and by which 
you will see what is going on, and that for doing my duty, 
(as I hope I shall always do it, in a fearless and impartial 
manner), I am to be deprived of my commission as a magis- 
trate. Will you pray for me, and recommend me to Him 
whose never-faihng providence ordereth all things both in 
heaven and on earth ? I am very busy, and in the midst of 
conflicts. The state of Jamaica is very sad at present. 
There is much to lament over, and grievous wrongs, which 

6* 



84 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

need to be redressed; but tlie Lord reigneth. Let me 
know wliat you think of the Governor's conduct towards 
me, and how I should hear it all ? It is ahnost a pity to live 
in such a country, yet it seems that one has, in providence, 
a part to act. Matters are really very corrupt, and some 
effort is necessary to puf them right. Some sacrifice needs 
be made. Surely this matter of wrong and cruelty will 
not be allowed to pass unnoticed ; and if you know any 
M.P. or other influential friend who would call at the 
Colonial Ofiice and inquire what statements the Governor 
has sent home on the subject, I should be much obliged. 
Any amount of wrong may be perpetrated at this rate with 
impmiity; and no one Tvill dare to offer remonstrance. 
The subject is fraught with interest to every friend of 
humanity and good order. 

I remain, my dear brother, 

Ever yours in great esteem, 

Geo. W. Goedon, 

He wrote me a long letter on the 20tli of the 
next month, from which I beg to quote the 
following paragraphs in reference to the treatment 
which he had received at the hands of Governor 
Eyre, which evidently appeared to Mm to be 
personal and sioiteful, and should be taken into 
account by those who applaud Mr. Eyre's mag- 
nanimity and kindness up to the date of the out- 
break. Let him be weighed in the balances of 
of the year 1862, and he will be "found want- 
ing" as truly as in 1865. "You will receive to 
your address " (writes Mr. Gordon) " a dozen 
copies of the Watchman, containing correspond- 
ence between the Lieutenant-Governor and me, by 



Mr, Gordon's Political Life. 85 

the 'reading of ^vliich you will obtain some valua- 
ble information of how matters are in Jamaica, 
and what sort of government it now is — worse 
than ever, much worse. 

" 1st. The conduct of the Lieutenant-Governor 
is such as to bring the government of the country 
into contempt ; and people begin to wonder how 
the Government of England could send such a 
man here. What will the end be ? 

" 2nd. He shows himself to be a partaker with 
evil doers, and that he is devoid of justice and 
humanity. 

" 3rd. That he is a prejudiced man, and has 
allowed himself to be misled by weak designing 
men, who have deceived him, and disposed him 
to wrong acts. 

'' 4th. That he is *a man to whom no appeal 
can be made ; and instead of judging, as he ought 
to do, in a fair and honourable way, he will make 
himself a partizan, and take up the defence of an 

individual, however unworthy, such as , and 

disgrace, punish, and injure any one in a spirit of 
hatred and revenge. 

'' 5th. That he will admit of no reforms, &c., 
&c. ; and there is being fast created a second 
bondage in Jamaica ; already the people begin to 
suspect this. 

" 6 th. That the neglected institutions of the 
country, or rather the icant of institutions, is 



86 • Life of Hon. G. W,__GoTdon. 

now positively abnegated by tbe conduct of Mr. 
Eyre as lieutenant-governor, who, if a magistrate;, 
as in my case, would bring anything to his notice, 
though in an individual capacity, and every word 
of it true, will declare it a wilful and deliberate 
misrepresentation, and at once dismiss him from 
the Commission, for doing his duty, for attending 
to the poor, and for speaking the truth. This, in 
an English country, is worse than the Inquisition, 
because there the principle is " Borne,'' but here 
we profess to be under English rule, and to have 
the forms of justice." After referring to several 
oppressive and iniquitous transactions, Mr. Gor- 
don adds — " They proclaim a reign of terror ; the 
people are becoming greatly incensed at all this, 
and the result may yet he seen!' 

A dear brother, writing to me from Jamaica, 
on the 8th of September, 1862, made a casual 
allusion to Mr. Gordon, which I may here in- 
troduce : " At present the treatment of your 
friend, G. W. Gordon, Esq., from Governor Eyre 
has become the main subject of editorial comment 
of every paper in the island, save the Colonial 
Standard, which is sleeping. ' The tide of public 
opinion was so much against him, that he would 
have sunk, did he not confess that he was misled 
by his advisers, and was willing to restore Mr. 
Gordon his commission as a Justice of the Peace. 
By the way, I may mention that Mr. Gordon 



Mr. Gordon's Political Life, 87 

preached twice here since yon left. His services 
were highly appreciated by the congregation." It 
is manifest that the virus of "Eyre's reign of 
terror," as it has been recently stigmatized, showed 
itself when he was only Lieictenant-GoYeTHOT, and 
that it did not begin, as some have supposed, but 
only terminated, and spent itself, in the bloody 
finale at Morant Bay. Poor Gordon was a 
marked^victim for years before he was murdered. 
He hietu it, too ; for on more than one occasion 
did he express his apprehension, by his pen and by 
his mouth (as has lately been proved to the world), 
that his malicious foes would despatch him, if a fit 
opportunity occurred, for the purpose of wreaking 
their vengeance on him ; and the world knows 
now, as well as he knew then, that his fears were 
not groundless. Many must be curious to know 
what were the political crimes of Mr. Gordon, 
which provoked the representative of the greatest 
monarch on earth to adopt such severe and arbi- 
tary measures for his official humiliation and an- 
nihilation at so early a date. I cannot but think 
it most ^providential that Mr. Gordon should, 
himself, have f^irnished me with materials for 
vindicating his reputation, when he w^ould be 
unable to speak for himself. Copies of his cor- 
respondence with Governor Eyre and others, were 
most carefully written out, and sent to me, nearly 
five years ago, as if for the very purpose of 



88 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon, 

bringing them forth to the public at the present 
juncture, tha,t thereby he might be permitted to 
speak to the world for himself 

^' What hast thou done ? The voice of thy 
brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." 

The following letter, to Governor Eyre, reveals 
a sad, yet common, state of things then in 
Jamaica : — 

Kingston, 9th June, 1862, 

H. W. Austin, Es<][., 

Governor's Secretary, &c., &c. 

SiE, — I regret to find myself obliged to resort in a com- 
plaining strain to His Excellency the Lieut. -Governor, bnt 
I have no alternative, and after having done my part I shall 
feel acquitted. It is my duty to bring to His Excellency's 
knowledge the intense suffering of a considerable portion 
of the inhabitants of this city, who are pining for want, and 
almost daily dying of starvation. Every day the most heart- 
rending complaints are heard ; and if I should hold my peace 
the very stones would cry out. If you will be kind enough 
to acquaint His Excellency with this, I am sure it will 
attract his consideration, and on due inquiry it will be 
found what a vast amount of human misery now exists. 
I may, in this matter alluded to, refer to Mr. Stipendiary 
Justice Bricknell, the Kev. J. F. Roach, and others, who 
come in contact with the poor. The Mayor and members 
of the corporation have had their attention dravv^n to the 
subject by myself and other parties ; but they remain 
callous and cold, wicked and inhuman in this case ; and as 
well may it be expected that the Ethiopian shall change 
his skin and the leopard his spots, as to expect any good 
from the corporate body of Kingston — they have been long 
accustomed to do evil. It pains me to say so, but it is no 



Mr. Gordon's Political Life. 89 

less true than startling, tliat tliev will suffer a poor man 
dying of starvation to be sent to the Leper's Home, and 
that, too, without relief. The object must be that there 
the party may die, exposed, and be buried without inquiry I 
Surely the wrath of Heaven will come down on such a city 
as this ; the cries and moans of the perishing poor must 
reach to Him to whom vengeance belongeth. There is no 
poor house nor city hospital in Kingston, nor any stranger^s 
home for the unfortunate sailor or traveller who may be 
cast within its T\Tetched precincts. No signs of civilization 
or benign influences can be traced to the corporation of 
Kingston. It seems stricken, and is powerless for good, 
and a system of hard-heartedness disgraces its existence. 
Seeing that all this is true, and justly cannot be denied, it 
becomes necessary that the Government which has encour- 
aged an expensive and profuse system of immigration of 
Asiatics and others to this island to take some notice, and 
use some efforts in relief of the suffering inhabitants and 
strangers of Kingston ; and I pray that His Excellency 
may be pleased to take such measures in this information 
as in his wisdom, and in the urgency of the case, he may 
find necessary. 

I have the honour to be, Sir, 

Your obdt. servt., 

G. W. Gordon. 

That seems a dark picture of affairs, yet all 
who know Jamaica from personal inspection, like 
myself, must confess that it is but a faithful, and 
by no means exaggerated, representation, as may 
be proved by quotations from other authorities, 
before this chapter is concluded. 

The following is a copy which Mr. Gordon sent 
me of a letter, written the same month, to the 



90 Life of Eon. G. W. Gordon. 

Bishop of Kingston, which will give the public 
an accurate view of the ecclesiastical state of 
things: — 

Bath, St. Thomas-in-the-East, SrdJune, 1862. 
Right Rev. Sir,— The liloeral salary provided by the 
Legislature to the clergy of this island was to enalole them 
to attend to clerical duties faithfully, and to supply the 
wants of their congregations and schools, and for all other 
duties ; but I regret to say in some cases the clergymen 
seem to omit the consideration of this, and devote their 
time and attention to other calUngs of an entirely secular 
nature, so that they are actually paid large stipends to look 
after their own business matters, while the poor and 
afficted people, T\ith the general interest of their Church, 
are detrimentally neglected. In addition to this, a very 
unseemly indifference appears to exist" to the authorities, 
and great want of courtesy and proper respect is shown in 
certain cases, derogatory to the character of a minister of 
religion ; and I have, as a matter of duty, and for the good 
of society, to submit for investigation, under the provisions 
of the Clergy Act, the following charges against the present 

curate of . Under the Clero-v Act his conduct deviates 

from that of his profession, and for which he is paid. He 
rents a large property, called , which, in order to con- 
duct (where he carries on the business of pen-keeper and 
devotes his time to the breeding of cattle, horses, mules, 
and other stock in which he deals) causes him to neglect 
his duties, for which he is paid as a clergyman. That his 
time is taken up in looking after the property, its general 
matters, fences, pasturage, rents, preventing tresspass, and 
sometimes in unseemly personal contests with parties 
about, and thus interferes with matters which do not ap- 
pertain to the office of a clergyman. That in addition to 
all this he is a regular speculator in purchasing old cattle 



Mi\ Gordon's Political Life. 91 

from estates in Plantation Garden Eiver, and fattening and 
selling them, and acting in a way in tMs and other respects 
directly contrary to the canons of the Church, and deroga- 
tory to the office of a minister, whose salary is particularly 
provided to prevent his entering on traffic or matters of 
merchandise. That he has also been engaged in supplying 
shingles to an institution in Bath, of which he is a member^ 
and getting the accounts passed in another party^s name. 
Also he is engaged in a cocoa-nut traffic, so that all his 
time, necessary for visiting and the work of the Gospel, is 
taken up in these duties. That, in consequence, it is 
stated, his sermons, if they might be so called, are generally 
not written, but delivered in the most incoherent and crude 
manner, to the great discomfort of the congregation. That 
his example in all the foregoing facts is glaring for evil, 
that it ought not to be allowed to continue, and that if, on 
investigation, these charges shall be found correct, the 
remedies provided by the canons of the Church, and also 
by law, should be applied. That Sunday seems to be the 
only day on which he is engaged in clerical duties, while 
the other six days are ostensibly given to his own "private 
purposes of emolument, as pen-keeper, dealer in meagre 
and fat cattle, &c., &c., as above described, &c. 

(Mr. Gordon having been in infancy baptized in 
the Established Church, he claimed, on that and 
official grounds, the right to interfere with such 
cases.) 

Mr. Eoundell, M.A., in his recent interesting 
treatise on Jamaica, has furnished the following 
among other statistics. " In addition to the sum 
of £28,840 12s. 8d., so granted for ecclesiastical 
purposes out of the Island Treasury, certain addi- 
tional grants are made out of the Imperial Trea- 



92 Life of Hon. G, W, Gordon. 

sury, namely — for tlie Bishop of Jamaica (resident 
in Europe), per annum, £1,400 ; for the Coadjutor 
Bishop of Kingston, £1,600; for three archdea- 
cons, £1,800. There are also certain stipendiary 
curates, whose salaries, amountincy in the ao'OTe- 
gate to £4,100 per annum, also paid in part out 
of the Imperial Treasury/' Dr. King says that 
" the negroes were heavily taxed for the importa- 
tion of Coolies to supersede themselves, for an 
Established Church costing the colony about 
£45,000 per annum, to which few of them be- 
longed, and for the jobbing and corruption 
of numerous placeholders." Should such an 
amount of public money be thrown away 
on purposes such as Mr. Gordon's letter to the 
local bishop details, in a colony with less than 
half a million inhabitants, and where the Esta- 
blished Church has, as Mr. Eoundell has shown, 
comparatively few adherents ? Admitting, as 
Mr. Gordon himself w^ould have readily done, the 
existence of honourable exceptions, yet it must be 
confessed that he has truly depicted a very gene- 
ral state of ecclesiastical corruption in Jamaica, 
which loudly calls for reformation and adjustment, 
and which, if allowed to take its course much 
longer, may require the visit of another special 
commission from the Home Authorities. 

Once more I may be allowed to present a copy 
of a characteristic letter written by Mr. Gordon 



Mr, Gordon's Political Life. 9S 

to the Duke of Newcastle, which will further 
show the interest he took In the welfare of the 
community, and the abuses which existed, as v/ell 
as explain the means by which he wished to ob- 
tain redress, and the crinies for which he was 
punished. It was written on the 1-ith June, 
1862, and is as follows : — 

May it please your Grace,— Since my last couunnni- 
cation through His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, 
I have received a despatch from His Excellency, a copy 
of which, ^vith my reply, I now beg to snbmit to your 
Grace ; and as I shall be able, I trust, fully to substantiate 
the statements which I made respecting the Morant Bay 
lock-up, and the unfortunate man (Thomas Williams) 
since dead, I trust that your Grace will be pleased to sus- 
pend, for the present, judgment on this matter, which, 
small as it appears, embraces points vital to the well-being 
of society in this part of Her Majesty's dominions, and in- 
volves interests concerning an important class of Her 
Majesty's subjects, for whom the British Government and 
people have always exercised jealous care, as affecting the 
grand scheme of negro-emancipation ; and if the fact of the 
introduction of Coolies be considered, the subject becomes 
still more grave. One of these unfortimate creatures I saw 
yesterday on the public road, all but naked, and others in 
Kingston are in a most wretched state ; it then becomes 
hard, for the Government is answerable, and it is time that 
the sanitary condition of the island should be considered. 

I have further to state that a few days ago, in attendincr 

at the Court-house, in Kingston, I found two Coolies, who 

had, the day previous, been put on their trial and remanded, 

and brought up again before the sitting magistrate. The 

I charge was for stealing, but could not be proceeded with for 



94 Life of Hon. G. W, Gordon. 

want of an interpretePj because it was stated tliat there 
were no means to pay one, nor any provision in the law. 
The two men were then dismissed, and let loose again on 
society. Tliis snrely is a case of intolerable grievance, not 
only to the party making the charge (and that party was in 
the name of the Crown), but to the whole conminnity, and 
must tend to complete ultimate disorganization ! We are 
taxed to import these people to work individual, ^wivate 
gentlemen's estates. When they become mendicants after 
being here uncared for, then also we are to be further taxed 
by their acts of spoliation, and no remedy can be afforded 
or restraint put upon them, as is proved in Court. What 
must the end of all this be ? The sitting Justices on this 

case were . I now imiolore the righteous interposition 

of your Grace. I shall not on any future occasion trespass 
on that valuable time, which I am aware important and 
public business demands ; but this subject will lead your 
Grace into deductions worthy of notice. 
With the highest respect, 

I have the honour to be. 

Your Grace's most obdt. servt., 

Geo. W. Gordon. 

Some have maintained that Mr. Gordon's poli- 
tical controversies arose from his morose and 
morbid temper, more than from any just cause of 
complaint, and have doubted the accuracy of his 
statements respecting the unfortunate man Wil- 
liams, who was shut up in a water-closet at 
Morant Bay, until he perished from hunger and 
medical neglect ; naturally thinking that such a 
state of criminal neglect would not be tolerated 
in any part of Her Majesty's dominions. In jus- 
tice to the memory of Mr. Gordon, it is proper to 



I 



Mr. Gordon's Political Life. 95 

state that others were querulous and censorious 
too, and not (as they have proved) without suffi- 
cient ground. For example, the following facts 
were published in Jamaica by a Missionary, who 
challenged contradiction. '' What we saw (in the 
so-called poor-house) was appalling and humiliat- 
ing. There was no bed-furniture at all to be seen, 
not even a mattress or a rug, on which the sick 
and dying might stretch their feeble bodies ; nor 
a door nor a window in that filthy, dilapidated 
prison-house, to shield them from the violence of 
the tropical wind and rain. The roof seemed like 
a rotten sieve ; and a poor, emaciated, dying 
young woman told me, with quivering lips, tear- 
bathed cheeks, and a ghastly look I can never 
forget, that the rain sometimes drenched her, but 
that she was too weak to move about or help her- 
self Some of the inmates had died of vermin, 
starvation, and medical neglect. Male and female, 
young and old, were promiscuously huddled toge- 
ther, without any one to take charge of them by 
day or by night, in sickness or in death, or to 
administer so much as a cup of cold water. 
There is not even a neighbour residing within 
their call ; and when they become too feeble to 
minister to their own necessities, they must crawl 
outside the building, or lie where they are, and 
die, and rest there unburied, until some humane 
person may casually pass by, or call in, and find 



96 Life of Hon. G. W, Gordon, 

their remains/' &c. These are statements the 
truth of wliich could not be denied seven years 
ago. They and many others, stronger than any 
Mr. Gordon ever made, were published in Jamaica, 
while I was there, in a pamphlet, which passed 
through two editions ; and they have not yet, and 
they never can, be gainsaid. Cases came under 
my own observation which led me to believe that 
the emancipated people were systematically robbed 
by designing officials, in such ways as summoning 
them to court for paid, and even eeceipted ac- 
counts, and wrenching their horses, &c., from 
them for taxes duly paid. I can specify cases in 
which I interposed, irrespective of hundreds of 
complaints made hj the poor people to that effect. 
I had sometimes to go to the Court-house at the 
tearful request of the helpless black widow, to 
confront the educated and polished English offi- 
cial, and deliver the hapless victim from his 
plundering fangs. 

My house was besieged on court-days with 
earnest men and women, entreating me to come 
and sit in Court, as my presence there would save 
them from injustice and spoliation. 

On this chapter the following suggestions are 
submitted : — 

1st. In the worst of times God leaves not him- 
self without a witness. We read of an epoch 
when God saw that the wickedness of man was 



1 



Mr. Gordon's Political Life, 97 

great in the earth, and that every imagination of 
the thonghts of his heart was only evil con- 
tinually, and it repented the Lord tjiat he had 
made man upon the earth, and it grieved him at 
his heart. But there and then Noah was a just 
man, and perfect in his generation, "a preacher 
of righteousness " — one that " walked with God." 
Again, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah 
had. become very grievous sinners ; the cry of 
them had waxed great before the face of the Lord ; 
but at that very time we read of Abraham the 
friend of God — the father of the faithful inter- 
ceding for the sin-stricken people, and of just 
Lot vexing his righteous soul from day to day 
with their unlawful deeds. 

In the days of Ahab and Jezebel, when abomi- 
nable idolatry and national apostasy prevailed, as 
Macduff has graphically expressed it : " The time 
had arrived for judgment ; the cup of Ahab and 
Israel was full. The cloud was charged. It was 
about to burst on the devoted land. Is there no 
gleani of light to relieve this thick darkness ? Is 
there no trumpet-tongued messenger, no minister 
of flaming fire, to Annclicate the rights and prero- 
gatives of Israel and Israel's Jehovah — to witness 
for the great essential truth — the unity of God ; 
I taking up the old watchword, '' Hear, Israel, the 
j Lord our God is one Lord ? " Yes ! " God has come 
, to send fire on the earth, and in the person of 
i 7 



rill 



98 Life of Hon, G, W. Gordon. 

Elijah it is already kindled." "He has already in 
him a champion ready harnessed for the battle, 
who will bt bold to speak His word before kings 
and not be moved. The fan is in his hand, and 
he will thoroughly purge his floor, hurl Baalzebub, 
the prince of devils, from his seat, and quench 
the fire from his defiled and defiling altars. It 
was then, in the midst of this scene of darkness, 
apostasy and blood that forth came the great 
Tishbite. Elijah was no dumb dog that cannot 
bark ; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber : 
his was not the trumpet to give forth a wavering 

or uncertain sound The gigantic evils of 

the times needed a giant to grapple with them : 
one who could fearlessly confront wickedness in 
jhigh places, be the scourge of court vices, and 
dare anything and everything for the sake of 
truth. God has ever His star ready to come 
forth in the midnight of gloom and despair. 
When the sword drops from the hand of Moses, 
He has his Joshua ready to take it ; when the 
Philistine champion defies the armies of Israel, 
He has ready the stripling youth with the sling and 
the pebble stones to smite liim to the dust ; whem 
His people are led captive, He has Daniel and 
Cyrus, Joshua and Zerubbabel, ready at His word 
to turn again the captivity of Zion, as streams 
in the south." 

Jamaica had lost William Knibb, of ever-glo- 



Mr, Gordon's Political Life. 99 

rious memory, who was a principal agent under 
God to proclaim liberty to the captive. Since 
his death, a spurious system of slavery in the 
name of freedom — a wolf in sheep's clothing has 
been worrying the black and coloured people 
almost to death, and struggling hard for the old 
grim ascendancy in every part of the island. The 
enemy was coming in like a flood, and threatening 
to inundate the country with the licentiousness 
and horrid cruelties of the infamous " palmy days " 
of bondage; — a striking culmination of which 
was presented in and around Morant Bay, in what 
Mr. Eoundell has justly characterized '' deeds of 
blood, which most unnecessarily were perpetrated 
against an inferior race, during the hell-like satur- 
nalia of martial law.'' George William Gordon 
chivalrously stood forward, in the spirit of 
Knibb, to grasp the standard, which he hoisted 
aloft and floated defiantly in the face of every 
foe of liberty, justice, and Christianity. His 
heroic words cannot be collected, nor can his gal- 
lant adventures be recounted or appreciated by 
^Q present age; but a more enlightened, just, and 
humane generation will yet arise and crown his 
immortal memory with its own proper glory. 
Gordon was the Elijah of Jamaica. The Lord 
had His hidden ones, doubtless, in the country — 
pious men among the clergy and the laity ; but, 
generally speaking, they were either afraid or 

7* 



100 Life of Eon. G. W, Gordon. 

ashamed to speak out against public grievances ; 
and, perliaps, some of them conscientiously judged 
that it was not witliin the compass of their sphere 
of duty to enter any polemical arena. At all 
events, not one in the whole colony, for some 
years past, so fully recognized, as Mr. Gordon, the 
divine obligation — " Cry aloud, spare not : lift 
up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people 
their transgressions, and the house of Jacob 
their sins." 

2nd. Liberty of conscience, even in a free 
country, may be but a rare and costly enjoyment. 

There are many in the world who purchased 
their bodily freedom at a dear rate ; and it is ex- 
tremely harrowing to read about the sufferings 
of some pursued and punished " runav/ays," such 
as Mrs. Stowe, of America, or the Hon. Eichard 
Hill, of Jamaica (a truly honourable, accomplished, 
excellent man) has published. But there are not 
a few that would shrink with horror from phy- 
sical bondage, who quiescently submit to mental 
"servitude, as if it were neither sinful nor shame- 
ful. The planters of Jamaica are owners of 
something better than land, and they know how 
to treat their obsequious parasites with princely 
generosity; but woe worth the man who attempts 
to burst his intellectual fetters, and make his 
escape from them ! Many were surprised when 
the Colonial {Standard's renegade reporter of the 



Mr, Gordon's Political Life. 101 

Morant Bay transactions recanted, as soon as lie 
found safe footing, and publicly confessed that his 
original report was but a fabrication (a lordly dish 
of garbled statements specially prepared to suit 
the vicious palate of tyrants) as if that were a 
'tiev: thing under the tropical sun. A flexible 
conscience in Jamaica would remunerate its pos- 
sessor better than growing flax or cotton. Gagging 
was more general than flogging when I was in the 
island. I shall never forget my own ransom 
from thraldom, and the penalties of my escape. 
Being but a stranger, and for some time a cjuiet 
observer of persons and events, the planters, 
attorneys, overseers, and magistrates literally op- 
pressed me with their simpering visits and lavish 
benefactions, while the magnates and scribes were 
offensively fidsome in their honeyed adulations. 
But as I became conversant with their real cha- 
racter and design, and found out that many of 
them were not only living in gross immorality, 
but were, moreover, triumphantly belching the 
burning lava of their iniquity on the community, 
through a portion of the Colonial Press, I deemed 
it my duty to reply through the same medium, in 
a few tirades against concubinage and other evil 
practices which they were strenuously defend- 
ing : then the smiles of the great ones became 
frowns : their courteous visits were forgotten : their 
gagging presents were withheld, and the dulcet 



102 Life of Eon, G, W. Gordon. 

tones of the press, with one or two noble ex- 
ceptions, lost nearly all their sweetness. 

The British public marvelled that a few of the 
missionaries in Jamaica should be found, not only 
conniving at, but cordially approving of, the bar- 
barous atrocities perpetrated on the innocent and 
defenceless, through Governor Eyre and his sub- 
ordinates. It was matter of no surprise at all to 
me, nor could it be so to any who knew such 
men as Eadcliffe and Gardiner, &c., and the state 
of Jamaica. Ah! what multitudes have sold their 
birthright, as Esau did, for a mess of pottage, and 
sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, 
to provoke Him to anger ! "Woe unto them ! for 
they have gone in the way of Cain, and run 
greedily after the error of Balaam for reward." 

I coidd name a wealthy planter magistrate of 
the old slave-holding caste, who promised a well- 
knovai missionary the sum of £5, on condition 
that he would not ask a neighbouring fellow- 
labourer to his annual missionary meeting, that 
he might, in this way, be revenged on the reprover 
of sin ; and, alas ! that little golden bait accom- 
plished the base purpose for which it was cast. 
Xot only the Master but some of His best servants 
have been sold for a few pieces of silver, "which, 
while some coveted after, they have erred from 
the faith, and pierced themselves through with 
many sorrows." 



Mr. Gordons Political Life. 103 

Mr. Gordon obtained his intellectual freedom 
at a great sacrifice, and he refused to be coerced, 
bribed, or cajoled to either religious or political 
serfdom ; he was a free man, externally and inter- 
nally, from, the sole of his foot to the crown of 
his head ; therefore, he provoked the wrath of his 
compeers ; and a portion of them, technically 
designated the " Clique,'' combined, as he informed 
me, to thwart and impair his temporal interests to 
the utmost of their power ; yet he remained stead- 
fast, unmovable, and faithful to all his honest 
convictions, even unto death. 

3. Truth is mighty, and in spite of all oppo- 
sition, it must ultimately prevail. 

" Vincit Veritas " is an old proverb ; it might 
be termed a truism. " The lips of truth shall be 
established for ever ; but a lying tongue is but for 
a moment." For a time truth may be rudely 
trampled in the dust, but even then it is an in- 
corruptible gem : it may be cast into the hottest 
furnace, but it remains pure and indestructible as 
gold ; it may be immured for years in the foulest 
dungeon, but it comes out an angel bright and 
beautiful as ever ; it may be hurled ignominiously 
out of societv, or buried in the earth : still it is 
not dead but sleepeth, and shall arise again, like 
a giant refreshed with wine, and assert its claims 
to be heard and believed ; for it is immortal, 
eternal, unchangeable, almighty — an attribute of 



104 Life of Eon, G. W, Gordon. 

God Himself. For a season, governors and 
baronets, philosophers and sentimentalists, editors 
and missionaries combined together to prove Mr. 
Gordon a liar and a miscreant ; but now that his 
allegations and proceedings have been examined 
in the broad daylight of facts, attested by most 
impartial and competent witnesses, they appear 
all founded on truth, honour, and uprightness ; 
but the mouth of those who invented and circu- 
lated slanders ■ to blast his reputation, has been 
shut in opprobrious silence. The Eoyal Com- 
mission to Jamaica, as well as Sir John P. Grant, 
the successor of Governor Eyre, and others, have 
already substantiated Mr. Gordon's statements 
while he lived and when he died, about himself 
and the public affairs of Jamaica, and justified 
his actions in the face of liis maligners. His 
Excellency, the present Governor, in opening the 
Legislature on the 16th of October ultimo, deli- 
vered an address which contained the following 
and similar statements : — '' He (Governor Grant) 
must confess that almost every department of the 
colony required great reform^ and he must add 
immediate reform. There was no department 
which required more reform, and none, perhaps, 
Avhich presented so many difficulties in the way 
of reform, as the legal department. The present 
legal administration of the island, to speak in 
plain terms, was extremely had. He hoped he 



Mr. Gordon's Political Life. 105 

migiit be pardoned for saying so, but, in liis 
opinion, such ^vas the fact. He was therefore 
persuaded (after adducing cases to the point for 
illustration) that in a case where the poor negro 
had to sue for a debt of ten guineas, or about that 

sum, THERE WAS XO JUSTICE FOR A POOR MAX. 

In common matters it was not so bad, but it was 
had enough. He was deluged with petitions day 
by daj" from this class of people," and so forth. 
What have we here but as it w^ere John the Bap- 
tist in the spirit and power of Elias ? — Grant in 
the spirit and power of Gordon ? What have we, 
in fact, but George William Gordon's mighty 
verities living and triumphantly flourishing amid 
the mouldering ruins of the old and guilty Con- 
stitution of Jamaica, which, like Judas Iscariot, 
in a panic of horrible despair, after the dark 
deeds of infamy and murder in St. Thomas-in- 
the-East, went immediately and committed self- 
destruction, which a noble statesman in the Home 
Parliament pronounced one of the wisest and best 
acts of the Colonial Government. Yes ! it is the 
voice of their murdered brother crying from the 
ground in tones of thunder, and echoed by Her 
Majesty's representative, and reverberated through 
the blue mountams and the green valleys, where 
he often wandered lonely and dejected enough, 
soliloquizing, '•' Woe is me that I sojourn in 
Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!" 



106 Life of Hon. G. W, Gordon. 

Hark ! it rolls across the wide Atlantic. Lo ! it 
is telegraphed with lightning speed to all the ends 
of the earth. See ! shining seraphim fly swiftly to 
Heaven with those live coals of unextinguishable 
truth from off the old altar of the suicidal Council, 
where they seemed to be quenched for ever, and 
lay them on the lips of the martyred hero. If there 
be tears in Heaven, they must be tears of joy and 
gratitude. "With such the eyes of the glorified 
one appear to be suffused, as he stands a little 
while silently absorbed. Soon he lays down his 
spangled crown and fadeless palm at Immanuel's 
feet, and makes the heavenly arches ring with the 
divine refrain, — '' AUelujah ! salvation and glory, 
and honour and power, unto the Lord our God ! 
Praise our God all ye His servants, and ye that 
fear Him both small and great. Allelujah : for the 
Lord God Omnipotent reigneth ! Let us be glad 
and rejoice and give honour to Him ! Allelujah 1 
Amen.'' 



CHAPTER VII. 



MR. GORDON'S APPREHENSION, TRIAL, AND DEATH. 

A man's birth is an interesting and memorable 
occurrence : his life is a very important fact ; and 



Appxheoision, Trudy and Death. 107 

his death is a most solemn event, when or 
where, or however it takes place. It is not sur- 
prising to read of some "who, through fear of 
death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage." 
Appropriately does Job entitle the ghastly in- 
vader, Death, '' the kixg of teeeoes ;" and well 
might David utter the plaintive monologue, " My 
heart is sore pained within me, and the teeeoes 
of death are fallen upon me ;" and not without 
sufficient cause was he much moved, and went up 
to the chamber over the gate and wept ; and as 
he went thus said, " my son, Absalom ! my son, 
my son, Absalom ! would God I had died for 
thee, Absalom, my son, my son ! " 

Even the removal of little ones, by any infan- 
tile disease, converts the happiest homes into 
Eamahs of lamentation and bitter weeping, where 
heart-broken Eachels, with pale faces, swollen 
eyes, and disheveled locks, are refusing to be com- 
forted. Ah, me ! how desolate the decease of the 
parental head of a family makes the household 
circle feel ! It is like tearing away the roof of 
the residence in mid-winter, and leaving the 
pining inmates to shiver, unprotected, from the 
chilling frost and the drifting snow. But the 

\ final dissolution, w^hen it comes in the ordinary 
course, is shorn of lialf its terrors. With 
loving ones hovering, like ministering spirits, 

^ around us, a comfortable bed to lie down in. 



v^ 



108 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

medical attendance to alleviate our pains, the 
Christian visitor to read and pray beside ns, and 
talk to us of " Heaven above, where all is love," 
we might be almost tempted to say, '' If this be 
called dying, 'tis pleasant to die." It is other- 
wise, however, with the brave warrior who has 
received a mortal wound by shot or shell, or gleam- 
ing spear, in the gory battle-field ; or with the 
forlorn traveller who has sunk exhausted, blanched 
and parched in the arid desert, with nothing to 
shield his fevered brow from the burning rays of 
the tropical sun ; and with no earthly attendants 
but the howling tenants of the wilderness, which 
are already scenting him for their prey ; or with 
those who are startled to a sense of imminent 
danger, amid the great waters, by the crackling 
flames of the wambling vessel, and choose to leap 
into the boihng deep to escape a more terrible 
destruction by the devouring fire ; or with those 
who are suddenly " buried alive " by the crashing 
avalanche, the whelming earthquake, or the 
smothering colliery explosion; or ^vith those, 
again, whose life is peremptorily claimed by the 
horrid assassin. But even such revolting ter- 
minations of life appear not only tolerable, but 
inviting when contrasted with that of the exe- 
crated felon, who is ignominiously hurled from 
the earth by the grisly hangman, with all the 
associated opprobrium of such an exit ; and yet 



Apprehension, Trial , and Death. 109 



this last ca.se fails to give us an adequate concep- 
tion of the dreadful demise of the great and good 
man whose eventful life has been reviewed in the 
preceding chapters. 

I fancy I see my sainted brother, in Kingston, 
as usual, about a week after the deplorable riot at 
Morant Bay, in October, I860. In that commer- 
cial city there had been no disturbance of the 
peace : no, nor within thirty miles of it ; nor was 
there the slightest apprehension there of any 
mutinous proceeding. Why then should any of 
the loyal and peaceful inhabitants dread either 
incarceration or execution, under the benign and 
just sceptre of the most beloved sovereign that 
ever adgrned the throne of England ? Xo I no, 
— life and property will be guarded with jealous 
care ; all the constitutional rights and immunities 
of British subjects will be fully enjoyed by the 
humblest inhabitant. Yet Mr. Gordon must have 
overheard some ominous mutterings, and observed 
the storm gathering, and perceived some glances 
of the fatal lio^htnino; in the countenances of the 
sanguinary autocrats; for when he returned liome 
in the evening, he said to his dear wife, '' I regret 
to see the feeling in town towards me, declaring 
that I am the origin of all the outbreak ; and T 
am determined to read over my will to-night, and 
see if any alteration is required, for the bitterness 
is so great towards me that they would think 



110 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

nothing of despatcliing me quickly." I think I 
see the holy man next morning, in the integrity 
and innocence of 'his heart, conducting family 
worship before leaving his mansion for his place 
of business in Kingston. He forgets not, in his 
fervent supplications, the state of Jamaica : he 
makes special intercession for St. Thomas-in-the- 
East. His carriage is in waiting for him at the 
hall door — he blesses his household — gives the 
servants, Jammie and Thomas, their daily injunc- 
tions — smiles on the domestic maids : bids them 
be good girls, and have all in trim order when 
their mistress and he return in the evening. 
The kind-hearted lasses stand in the verandah 
watching their loved and revered ones iill they 
drive out at the gate, and turn down the avenue 
quickly out of sight, not thinking, when they 
shouted, '' Good morning, sweet massa and missis," 
that they had for the last time enjoyed the luxury 
of gazing on their cherished ones departing from 
their hallowed habitation together. I imagine I see 
that loving pair looking somewhat sadly, like the 
pensive disciples on their way to Emmaus, as they 
sit together talking of all those things which had 
happened. Mr. Gordon, who was wont to imitate 
the example of the Ethiopian Eunuch, when 
driving in his chariot, opens his Bible, and reads 
in the 53rd chapter of Tsaiah, " He is brought as 
a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before 



Apiorehensioii, Trial, and Death, 111 

her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His 
month/' &c. He muses especially on such pas- 
sages as, "He was cut off out of the land of the 
living:" "It pleased the Lord to bruise Him:'' 
" He hath put Him to grief : " ''He was numbered 
with the transgressors." Looking very solemnly 
in Mrs. Gordon's face, his lips the while 
quivering, and tears trembling in his eyes, he 
says, " My dear, is not that a wonderful chapter ? 
If the Master suffered such things so meekly, why 
should I complain ?" " No, mj precious George!'' 
replied Mrs. Gordon, " after reading that chapter 
the servant has no room for murmuring. You 
have suffered much, but you have not, and, I 
trust, never shall be put to death as a malefactor, 
as our dear Lord was : but if it sJioidd ever come 
to that, I doubt not you and I shall get grace to 
bear the trial. Eemember your favourite 6 th of 
Luke, George ; it has often dried your cheeks. 
Let us turn to it : I'll read it for you : — ' Blessed 
are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. Blessed 
are ye when men shall hate you, and when they 
separate you from their company, and shall re- 
proach you, and cast out your name as evil, for 
the Son of Man's sake. Eejoice in that day, and 
leap for joy : for behold your reward is great in 
heaven, for in like manner did their fathers unto 
the prophets.' Now, my darling husband, is not 
that that a cordial for you ? Give me your 



112 Life of Hon. G. W, Gordon. 

hand, and let us, like him who of old read the 
same j)ortion which you have been reading, go on 
our waj^ rejoicing."' 

Ah ! little do we know what a day may bring 
forth ; and it is better ordered by Providence 
that we do not. Poor Mrs. Gordon ! Hy heart 
is wrung with anguish and my eyes dimmed with 
tears at this moment as I think of thee. In the 
morning, thou art a Naomi, pleasant as the early 
dew ; but in the evening thou hast sad reason to 
wring thy hands and bury thy face in sorrow, and, 
with sobbing heart and faltering voice, exclaim — 
" Call me not Naomi ; call me Mara : I went out full, 
and the Lord hath brought me home again empty f' 
and every room, and corridor, and corner of that 
joy-smitten house echoes thy lamentation with 
a weird and desolate wail — empty ! empty ! 
empty ! 

The carnival at Morant Bay was becoming 
insipid. The knights of the cat, the torch, and 
the halter had become drunken and maddened 
with the blood of the helpless ; the carnage had 
become "heaps upon heaps" of human carrion, 
and was beginning to pall. The ^'fvm'' of shooting 
and flogging inoffensive men and women was 
abating in interest and hilarity. The pointers 
must discover fresh game for the sportsmen. 
What eclat, after all, could emblazon the aegis of 
the mighty, through stripping and whipping 



Apprehension, Trial, and Death. 113 

pregnant matrons almost in their " pangs ? " 
What glory could cover the prowess of major- 
generals, captains, and subalterns for quelling, 
aye, '' stamping out," a general insurrection, con- 
sisting of a handful of negro peasants, stung 
to local riot and depredations, by a deep 
sense of cruel and irremediable injustice and op- 
pression, trembling and cowering, unarmed, suing, 
"with weeping and supplication,'' for mercy at 
their feet ? Can these valiant men persuade their 
superiors at home that they have victoriously 
braved the brunt of a v/ide and wicked rebellion, 
without a leader worthy the name ? Where shall 
they find a " liead-centre,'' or cliieftain-leader for 
the colossal revolution ? " That's the rub." In 
order to overcome this difficulty, something like 
the following proemial conference must have oc- 
curred in the Council-chamber : — 

"t can see a concatenation of marvellously 
favourable circumstances, stretcliing through a 
vista of many years, forming an invincible chain 
of evidence to bind and hang any man, at the 
present juncture of affairs, if it could only be 
thrown around him," said General A. 

" I guess your man ; you have hit the nail 
on the head ; we will soon put the right man in 
the right place. Oh ! to get rid of the troubler 
of Israel, and the pest of the House of Assembly! 
Now is the time or never!" shouted Gustos B. 

8 



114 Life of Hon. G, W. Gordon. 

" But you forget/' replied Colonel C, " that 
Gordon lives in an unproclaimed part of the island, 
forty long miles from the scene of disturbance. He 
was not near Morant Bay on the day of the out- 
break, nor long before it, nor has he been there since. 
I suppose he never handled a pistol, nor brandished 
a cutlass. Moreover, it is well known that, at the 
close of his perorations or harangues at public meet- 
ings, he uniformly proposes, and with all his might 
joins in, three hearty cheers for his beloved Queen, 
dear old England, and the British government." 

"Tush, tush!" interrupted Major D., "this is not 
the time to be squeamish, and stickle about the 
minutise of jurisprudence. At present we have all 
Jamaica at our beck. From the Editors down to the 
Maroons, we shall have, with a few unimportant ex- 
ceptions, silent concurrence ; while amongst in- 
fluential circles we shall be deafened with peals of 
applause for despatching- — what shall I call^him ? 
You all know that some months ago he called a 
public meeting, through the Gustos, by a requisition, 
signed by 200 persons, at which he harangued 
the naked, starving creatures, about colonial 
abuses, oppression, and what not; where and 
when is he not preaching and praying? Oh! 
that will be put a stop to. We remember the 
'Hock'iip'' affair; his quarrel with the Governor, too. 
It was hard, he thought, to lose his commission ; 
but I reckon he will think it harder to lose his 



Apprehension, Trial, and Death. 115 

head ! Cannot that circular, inviting the starving 
ones to the public meeting referred to, be con- 
strued into a seditious '' peoclamation," gathering 
the negro clans together, for the diabohcal pur- 
pose of snatching Jamaica, our western gem, from 
the British crown ? Ay, ay, and is there not 
a rumour somewhere that the negroes, at that very 
meeting, had unanimously agreed to send Gordon 
to England, with their love to Her Majesty, and 
the Home Government, and to solicit permission 
to rebel, and murder all the white inhabitants, in- 
cluding his own father, his wife, and friends, and 
convert Jamaica into another Hayti ? All these 
facts can be arrayed, like flaming demons, against 
him, at the court-martial in the East. If we 
embrace not the present auspicious crisis for 
getting rid of George Gordon, we may look in 
vain for another so opportune; and, fellow- 
councillors and swordsmen, let us not forget, in 
conclusion, how he would reprobate jand scourge 
us, with his facile pen, and blasting tongue, for 
every flaw in the soldierly manoeuvres of our 
glorious campaign. But we are only wasting 
time. Out upon him with a warrant 1 and off with 
him quickly ! quickly ! on board the ^ Wolverine,' 
which is rigged and ready for the emergency.'^ 

Mr. Gordon's friends and relations, who knew 
that the bloodhounds were already on his track, 
urged him to make his escape at once, telling him 

8* 



116 Life, of Hon, G. TT. Gordon. 

that " a prudent man foreseeth the evil, and 
hideth himself; but the simple pass on and are 
punished." After retiring to his little sanctuary, 
in town, and laying his case before God : — in the 
dignity of conscious innocence, his face bright- 
ened with the glory which w^as revealed to him, 
and with the firm tramp of moral heroism, he 
stepped forth from his secret chamber, not to 
flee from, but to find out, and accost his impla- 
cable enemies, replying to his kind advisers — 
" "Were I to hide or fl_ee it would seem like guilt 
and cowardice." It might be thought anywhere 
except in Jamaica, and almost there itself that 
when the poor innocent dove flew into the 
very arms of His Excellency, some chord of 
mercy, humanity, or justice would have been 
touched ; and that then, at least, his adamantean 
heart would have relented so far as to vield to 
him the rights of a common malefactor, such as 
w^ould have fully satisfied him ; and such as the 
most atrocious criminal that ever polluted British 
soil, could, in the circumstances of the case, have 
demanded. The Governor knew then : all Jamaica 
knew, as w^ell as the wdiole world knows 7iotVj 
that were Mr. Gordon to get but the 100th 
part of the justice due to any felon, his precious 
life could not be taken away; nay, he must have 
known that, by such a concession, he w^ould only 
bring forth the righteousness of his victim as the 



n 



Axyprehensiony Trial, and. Death, 117 

light, and his judgment as the noon-day. Mr. 
Gordon was, to all intents and purposes, pre- 
judged, condemned, and executed; and in every 
way ^'despatched'' in Kingston, except in the 
matter of i\iQ clumsy farce and infernal fun of 
the foul deed ! If they believed him to be the 
head and chief of the great rebellion, why did 
they not at once shoot him down dead on the 
spot where they found him, as they had already 
done to hundreds of his so-called followers ? 
Faugh ! that would be like mercy to the innocent 
offender. He must have iniquity 'p-epared for 
him, and cast upon him. He must be led away 
in charge, as a wretch guilty of high treason, 
from the last embraces of his weeping wife, and 
from the loving and loyal people who delighted 
to honour him. He must endure all the coarse 
taunts of drunken and blasphemous sailors and 
soldiers. He must be numbered with trans- 
gressors, and his very coat must be torn from his 
back. Eoughs and bullies must flourish the 
"cat-o'-nine-tails" in his placid face. He must 
submit to the humiliation and chafing of a " moch 
trial," more painful to his ingenuous and sensi- 
tive mind than the wriggling tortures of the rug- 
ged gallows. He must suffer death in the 
most ignominious and cruel manner that the con- 
centrated essence of inhumanity and injustice 
could invent for a holy man of God, of whom 



118 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

Jamaica was not worthy. After studiously deny- 
ing the good man legal advice and competent 
witnesses, and teasing him almost to death by 
the court-martial farce of the three military strip- 
lings, he is informed by General Nelson that he is 
to be hung in the c-ourse of an hour ! A solemn 
hour that must have been, even to an heir of 
God and a joint heir with Christ, seeing the 
heavens opened, like Stephen, and the Son of 
man standing on the right-hand of God, and 
beautiful angels joyfully waiting to escort him 
thither ; and apostles, prophets, martyrs ready to 
welcome him, with rapturous acclamation, as a 
glorified martyr-brother, home to the Father s 
house of many mansions. He cannot say fare- 
well, for no earthly friend is near to comfort or 
cheer ; but the " Eriend that sticketh closer than 
a brother" is near, very near, and His presence 
will more than make up for all the loving ones 
who are absent. The Divine promise shall be 
graciously fulfilled to the letter : — " Lo, I am 
with thee always, even to the end." The kind 
Master is now whispering to His tried but 
honoured servant, "Be thou faithful unto death, 
and I will give thee a crown of glory that shall 
never fade away.'' " My servant, my servant, 
remember thy Master : thou hast suffered with 
Him and for Him in life ; and thou art to die 
like Him, too. Finish thy course with joy. 



Apprehension, Trial, and. Death, 119 

Drink the cup given tliee, and say, ISTot my will 
but Thine be done. Thy work is finished ; thou 
hast rendered the services of a hundred ordinary 
men to thy God and thy people. Thou hast 
fought the good fight ; thou hast kept the faith : 
even amidst the pollutions of Jamaica, thou hast 
not defiled thy garments ; and thou shalt walk 
with Me in w^hite ; for thou art worthy.'' Only 
one^ hour more for thee in this world of sin and woe. 
Only one shm^t hour, when thou shalt be absent 
from the body and present with the Lord ; only 
a little hour between thee and immortal glory. 
Thou hast nothing now to do but write good-bye 
and sweetly die. Thou shalt not now be deserted. 
The " king of terrors,'' in his most appalling form, 
shall have not a fro^Ti, but sweetest smiles for 
thee. Thy inexorable murderers shall only hand 
thee up, by that scaffold, to thy Heavenly Father, 
to kiss thee, and crown thee, and press thee to 
His heart. Thy cruel brethren, like Joseph's, 
meant evil by thus abasing thee ; but thy God 
will overrule their evil purpose, for His own 
glory, and thy good, and the good of thy be- 
loved land. Thy shameful death shall do more 
for Jamaica than thy sorrowful life could ever 
have acliieved : thus it shall be done to the man 
whom the King of kings delighteth to honour. 
Yes, honoured thou shalt be, and loved, and re- 
membered with gratitude, when the memory of thy 



120 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon, 

persecutors and slanderers shall rot. Thon slialt 
get grace to die, as thou hast lived, a pattern of 
moral excellence and magnanimity, lamb-like 
meekness, and child-like submission to thy unde- 
served and terrible doom. With Christ-like sub- 
limity thou shalt be enabled to die, praying for 
thine adversaries. A few minutes more, and thy 
God will say to thee, Well done, thou good and 
faithful servant ; enter thou into the joys of thy 
Lord. That wondrous epistle rolls away from 
thy rising spirit like a cloud of witnesses which 
shall fly to earth's remotest bounds, to tell of thy 
dignified and triumphant ascension ; in the teem- 
ing city, the quiet hamlet, the solitary cottage, 
men will bow in sorrow, their eyes suffused, their 
lips quivering, their hearts throbbing, and their 
hands trembling, as these thy dying words shall 
be read. And thousands of devout souls shall 
be lifted up in thanksgiving to God for enabling 
thee, in thy most trying hour, to leave such a noble 
example behind thee, for all whose names may be 
enrolled, after thine, in our glorious martyrology. 

Beloved Brother, why ask thy wife or any of 
thy bereaved ones "not to be ashamed of the 
death of her poor husband ?" Ashamed of thee ! 
Who that ever knew thee can be ashamed of thee ? 
God, angels, glorified saints, and all the ends of 
the earth shall heap lasting honours on thy 
memory, as one of our worthiest martyrs for 



A]rj_yrelieimon, Trial, and Death, 121 

truth, justice, liumanity, patriotism, pliilanthiopy, 
and Christianity. We are not ashamed of Hugh 
MacKail, the Scottish martyr, who '' went up the 
ladder to death " telling his fellow-sufferers that 
he felt in every step of it a degree nearer heaven ; 
and when he had reached the summit burst into 
the words, " Farewell father and mother, friends 
and relations ! FareAvell meat and drink ! Farewell 
the world and all its delights ! Farewell sun, 
moon, and stars ! Welcome God and Father ! 
Welcome sweet Jesus Christ I Welcome blessed 
Spirit of Grace, the God of all consolation ! 
Welcome glory ! welcome eternal life ! welcome 
death ! " Xo more can the world be ashamed of 
George Gordon than of him ! His devoted heroine 
will prove worthy of her husband. Histoiy informs 
us that when the monster Claverhouse sternly 
ordered John Brown to go on his knees, as he 
must immediately die, John complied, without 
remonstrance, and proceeded to pray in terms so 
melting for his wife and their born and unborn 
children (for she was near her confinement), that 
Claverhouse saw the hard eyes of the dragoons 
beginning to moisten, and their hands to tremble, 
and thrice interrupted him with volleys of 
blasphemy. When the prayer was ended, John 
turned round to his wife, reminded her that this 
was the day come, of which he had told her when 
he first proposed marriage to her ; and asked her, 



122 Life of Hon. 0. W. Gordon, 

if she was willing to part with him ? " Heartily 
willing," was the reply. "This/' he'^said, "is all 
I desire. I have nothing more now to do but die." 
He then kissed her and the children, and said, 
" May all purchased and promised blessings be 
multiplied unto you' !" " No more of this," roared 
the savage, whose own iron heart this scene was 
threatening to move. " You six dragoons there 
fire on the fanatic !" They stood motionless— 
the prayer had quelled them. Fearing a mutiny 
both among the soldiers and in his own heart, he 
snatched a pistol from his belt, and shot the good 
man through the head. He fell; his brains 
spurted out ; and the brave wife caught the shat- 
tered head in her lap. " What do you think of 
your husband now ?" howled the ruffian. She 
replied, "I aye thocht muckle o' him, sir, but never 
sae muckle as I do this day'' To Governor Eyre, 
Doctor Bowerbank, and all their blood-stained 
myrmidons, Mrs. Gordon might truly aver that 
she always thought much of her precious hus- 
band ; but never so much as on the day of his 
martyrdom for his fidelity to his God, his Queen, 
and his people, at Morant Bay. 

This summary of Gordon's wonderful life, 
which has been justly described by another as 
" singularly attractive, and almost romantically 
interesting," cannot be concluded by sentiments 
more appropriate, beautiful, and pathetic than 



Apprehension, Trial, and Death. 123 

those contained in his last communications to Mrs. 
Gordon, — the one written in the Wolverine as he 
was conveyed from Kingston to Morant Bay ; the 
other written on the threshold of glory, as he was 
waiting for his Lord to open the pearly gate and 
welcome him home. 

Before quoting these letters, I may observe 
that, as the last of them had to be written very 
hurriedly — especially the latter part of it, — 
parties not very familiar with Mr. Gordon's 
autograph must have found it a little difficult to 
decipher some portions of it, which will account 
for one or two slight errors in all the published 
copies of it that I have yet seen ; as, for example, 
in the phrase, " if any charge of sedition or in- 
flammatory language were partly attributable to 
me,'' &c. Editors generally substitute the word 
'' fairly "l " within brackets. Now, by a careful 
reference to the original, or its fac- similes, it will 
be seen that the questionable word is neither 
partly nor fairly, but ''justly,' as distinctly 
written as any word in the whole letter. I read 
it so, at first glance, and expressed my astonish- 
ment that any one who had seen the original 
could have read it otherwise. Inaccuracies in the 
spelling of several names I also notice, in all the 
printed copies ; but they are of little moment, as 
compared vith the other error alluded to. On 
board the " Wolverine," Mr. Gordon thus wrote : — 



124 Life of Hon. G. W, Gordon, 

My best beloved Lucy, — This may be the last time I 
shall write to yon. I have written very hnrriedly and in a 
rolling sea. Eemember me affectionately and forgivingly 
to all. I shall, if I must, die in peace, and with a clear 
conscience of being any party to the outbreak here. My 
heart throbs with love for yon, but let yonr soul be stayed 
on God through Christy and be not sorrowful as those with- 
out hope. My very, very dearest one, I shall in death 
remember your words, and kind and; devoted and affec- 
tionate attachment. Hoping that we shall again meet in 
Christ, to part no more. Yours to the last moment, 

G. W. Gordon. 

My BELOVED Lucy*, — General Nelson has just been kind 
enough to inform me that the court-martial, on Saturday 
last, has ordered me to be hung, and that the sentence is to 
be executed in an hour hence, so that I shall be gone for ever 
from this world of sin and sorrow. I regret that my 
worldly affairs are so deranged, but now it cannot be 
helped. I do not deserve this sentence, for I never advised 
or took part in any insurrection. All I ever did was to 
recommend the people who complained to seek redress in 
a legitimate way ; and if in this I erred, or have been mis" 
represented, I don't think I deserved this extreme sentence. 
It is, however, the will of my Heavenly Father that I 
should thus suffer, in obeying his command to relieve the 
poor and needy, and to protect, as far as I am able, the 
oppressed. And glory be to His name, and I thank Him 
that I suffer in such a cause. Glory be to the God and 
Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; and I can 
say it is a great honour thus to suffer, for the servant can- 
not be greater than his Lord. I can now say wT.th Paul the 
aged, " The time of my departure is come, and I am ready 
to be offered up. I have kept the faith, I have fought a 

■^ A love-name by which he generally addressed his wife. 



ApprelunsioUy Trial, and Death, 125 

good figlit, and henceforth there is laid np for me a crown 
of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall 
give to me.'' Please say to all friends an affectionate 
farewell, and that they must not grieve for me, for I die 
innocently. Assure Mr. Airy of the truth of this, and all 
others. Comfort your heart ; I certainly little expected 
this. You must do the best you can, and the Lord will 
help you ; and do not be ashamed of the death which your 
poor husband will have suffered. The judges seemed 
against me, and from the rigid manner of the Court I 
could not get in all the explanations I intended. The 
man Anderson made an unfounded statement, and so did 
Gordon ; but his testimony was different from the deposi- 
tion. The judges took the former, and erased the latter. 
It seemed \hdX I loas to he sacrificed! I know nothing of 
Bogle, and never advised him to the act or acts which have 
brought upon me this end. Please write to Mr. Chamerov- 
zow, Lord Brougham, and Messrs. Henchell, Du Buisson, 
and Co. I did not expect that, not being a rebel, I should 
have been tried and disposed of in this way. I thought 
His Excellency the Governor would have allowed me a fair 
trial, if any charge of sedition or inflammatory language were 
justly attributable to me ; but I have no power of control. 
May the Lord be merciful to him ! 

General Nelson, who has just come for me, has faithfully 
promised to let you have this. May the Lord bless him, 
and all the soldiers and sailors, and all men. Say farewell 
to Mr. Phillippo, and also to Mrs. Secard and Aunt, Mr. 
Bell, Mr. Yinen, Mr. Airy, and Du Casse, and many others 
whom I do not now remember, but who have been true and 
faithful to me. 

As the General is come, I must close. Eemember me 
to Aunt Eliza in England, and tell her not to be ashamed 
of my death. Now, my dearest one, the most beloved and 
faithful one, the Lord bless, help, preserve, and keep you. 



126 Life cf Hon. G. F. Gordon. 

A kiss for dear Mamma, wlio ^yill be kind to yon and Janet. 
Kiss also Annie and Jane. Say good-bye to dear Mr. 
Davidson and all others. I have only been allowed an 
hour ; I wish a Kttle more time had been allowed. Farewell 
also to Mr. Espeut, who sent np my private letter to him. 

And now^, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be 
with us all. 

Your truly devoted, and now nearly dying, husband, 

Geo. AV. Gordon. - 

I asked leave to see Mr. Panther, but the General said 
I could not. I msh him farewell in Christ. Love to all. 

G. W. G. 

Eemember me to Aunt and my Father. G. W. G. 

Mr. Eamsay has for the last two days been kind to me, 
and I thank him. 

The letter, which was carefully enclosed in an 
envelope, and addressed to Mrs. Gordon, has jotted 
on the back of it, a reference to Luke vi. 20—26, 
containing passages which were wont to occupy 
Mr. Gordon's thoughts, and cheer him in seasons 
of distress, such as — '' Blessed are ye that weep 
now. . . . Blessed are ye when men shall hate 
you, &c. Rejoice ye in that day and leap for 
joy : for, behold, your reward is great in heaven : 
for in the like manner did their fathers unto the 
prophets," &c. Mr. Chamerovzow, who was, 
perhaps, among the first that gave publicity to 
Mr. Gordon's dying epistle, and publicly espoused 
his cause and vindicated his reputation, in No- 
vember, 1865, added the following observations, 
which the course of time and the current of 



Apprehe'tision, Trialy and Death. 127 

events have rendered not less, but even more 
weighty than when they were at first made : — 
" With his mind dwelling upon the immediate 
future, he takes small heed of the present, and 
omits to date his last missive. He has been told 
he is to be hanged ' in an hour,' and then ' the 
General is come/ This is sufficient. Time to 
him is now notliing ; eternity everything.'' 

" I do not know whether the meeting in 
Morant Bay was held. The island papers contain 
no record of it, so we mav conclude its results 
were not very inflammatory. That it was not 
illegal, nor seditious in intent, we may infer from 
the requisition, signed by 200 persons, having 
been agreed to by the Gustos, the late Baron 
Ketelholdt, who fixed the day of meeting for the 
12 th of August, at 11 in the forenoon. The 
latter part of the evidence upon which Gordon 
was hanged was in circulation anticipatory of the 
meeting being held, on the 29 th of July. Xo 
unprejudiced person can read Mr, Gordon's last 
letter without having the conviction of his inno- 
cence forced upon him. The man who, with the 
certain prospect of a violent death, within one 
hour of his fate having been announced to him, 
could, with such majestic Christian calmness and 
resignation pen such a letter as the above, was 
no rebel, no encompasser of treason, massacre, 
and rebellion. He was a martyr'' 



128 Life of Hon, G. F. Gordooi. 

Instead of enlarging here on some reflections 
of my own on this chapter, such as the depravity 
of human nature, the mystery of Providence, the 
value of the Christian religion in life, but more 
especially in death, I have pleasure in substitut- 
ing the following beautiful verses, with the 
author's permission, received only an hour 
ago : — 

G. W. GOEDON, 

HANGED AT MORANT BAY, JAMAICA, OCTOBER 23, 1865. 

Murder' d, and under martial law, 
Gordon ! that has been thy doom ; 

Justice blush'd with shame, and saw 
Vengeance send thee to thy tomb. 

Spokesman of an injured race, 
Earnest, steadfast, good, and wise ; 

Thou hast reach'd the highest place, 
Thou hast gained the martyr's jDrize. 

Virtue was thy greatest crime, 
Loving God and loving men ; 

Branding wrong throughout all time 
With fluent tongue and earnest pen. 

Loyal subject of thy Queen, 

Noble-hearted, true, and kind ; 
Basely murder'd thou hast been. 

Treason never stained thy mind. 

Calmly thou didst meet thy fate 

(Never martyr more serene) ; 
While red-handed, cruel Hate 

Gloated o'er thy dying scene. 



Apprehension, Trial , and Death, 129 

Treason, black as darkest night, 

Dragg'd thee off to Morant Bay ; 
Treason against human right 

Took thy useful life away : — 

Treason to all human law, 

Treason to the Christian creed. 
Treason that will surely draw 

Justice down upon the deed. 

Yes, from every honest heart, 

From every land and clime ; 
A cry in earnest tones will start 

For justice upon such a crime. 

Oh ! Britain, speak ; for justice plead, 

And blush for very shame ; 
That they who wrought that guilty deed 

All bear the British name. 

98, Fleet-street^ London, ^ John Kiplet. 

I have just received a kind note from the Eev. 
Dr. King, of London, with his very interesting 
" Sketch " of Mr. Gordon, from which I take the 
liberty of giving a few important extracts that 
will greatly enhance the value of the present 
volume : — ' 

" Mr. Thomas Harvey " (writes Dr. King), '' a 
highly esteemed member of the Society of Friends, 
now on a visit to the Colony, says, in a letter 
recently received : ' A gentleman of high position 
(Hon. A. Bravo), well known to Joseph Sturge 
and myself on our former visit, gave us yesterday 
a long and interesting sketch of Gordon's life, 

9 



130 Life of Hon. G, W. Gordon. 

having known him intimately. The facts were 
substantially the same as published in England 
by Dr. King. His rise from the position of a 
slave ; self- education ; success in business ; send- 
ing his sisters, under good care, to Paris for edu- 
cation ; getting them respectably married ; por- 
tioning them; aiding his father in his reverses, 
and exercising great liberality to others; and this 
with much fervour and apparent sincerity of 
religious profession, render his character, as seen 
from one side, singularly attractive and almost 
romantically interesting." 

The following is from a letter addressed to Dr. 
King by Mrs. Shannon, of Kingston, mother-in- 
law of Mr. Gordon : — " In the year 1842, I left 
Jamaica, and took a few young ladies with me. 
Among them, by Mr. G. W. Gordon's requebt, 
were his two youngest sisters, who were twins. 
Their brother always paid me, and he soon after 
sent an elder sister. I took them to Paris, where 
he wished them all to spend some time, and after 
leaving them there for three months, I returned 
with him to fetch them. In October, 1846, he 
married, and in iSTovember we all returned to 
Jamaica, when he found his father's affairs getting 
worse. Soon after it was thought best for the 
family of Mr. J. Gordon to leave Jamaica. You 
were then in the island. They left accordingly, 
and our poor martyr took upon himself all liis 



Apprehension, Trial, and Death. 131 

father's responsibilities, agreeing to allow him 
£500 a year, of which Mr. Perkins, Mrs. Gordon's 
son by a former marriage, was to pay part ; but 
he only remitted once, as he got into trouble, and 
was obliged to leave clandestinely, so that all the 
responsibility fell on the dear departed one, who 
for years regularly sent the amount. But as pro- 
perty was each year becoming of less value, he 
too began to be in difficulty with his agents, and 
he was unable to remit so much ; but he still 
sent all he could, till his martyrdom. 

" A few years ago, his father came out, and was 
living with him. A large estate in St. Mary's was 
greatly in debt to Mr. J. Gordon's agents. His 
son was the responsible party, and wished to 
protect them. The father wanted to take the 
produce, and get possession of the books, and 
hence they had a quarrel, which, since the late 
affair, has been magnified into the report that the 
son struck his aged parent. I send you a copy 
of the old man s denial of this. I have since 
heard that Dr. Bowerbank has asserted that the 
son knocked the father down in the streets of 
Kingston! He has also alleged that when he 
came to my house to look for Mr. G. W. Gordon, 
I said, * Dr. B., you surely could not expect to 
find him here ; I have not seen the man for two 
years.' I certainly did say, pointing to my 
teachers and pupils (about forty), 'You could not 

9* 



132 Life of Eon. G, W. Gordon. 

expect lie was liere ; ' but who could have put 
any other construction on my words except him- 
self, than that a house full of children was the 
last place in which to find him ? As to my 
not having seen him, I saw him only the day 
before. . . . Since I have known Mr. Gordon, I' 
have never had one anerv word from him. and mv 
ovrn son never treated me with more kindness and 
respect. ... I could fill volimies were I to tell 
you of his many acts of kindness ; but. coming 
from me, the relation of them misiht be thouQ:ht 
partial. His friend, Mr, W. Anderson, never 
spoke more truly than when, introducing him to 
vou. he said he was a man of princelv o^enerositv 
and unbounded benevolence — yes, benevolent to 
a fault, for he would at any time divide the meal 
sent to his store with any one he thought needed 
it, and go without himself The last week of his 
life he did so to a poor white woman, whom, 
with his beloved wife, myself his sisters'' hus- 
bands, and many of his dearest friends, he was 
accused of plotting to kill. Oh ! it is sickening 
to think that any one who knew him could for a 
moment believe such a charge. Unfortunately, 
he has made many enemies among those in power 
by exposing their acts ; and, as he wrote in ]\Iay 
last, he believed if an opportunity occurred they 
would unceremoniously despatch him. You have 
doubtless heard of his dismissal from the otfice of 



I 



Apprehension, Tried, etnel Deettli, 133 

the magistracy, of which he held six, merely for 
an act of humanity. Two or three years ago he 
made enemies among some of the clerg}^ by ex- 
posing one of them to the bishop, and that very 
one is now brought up by the parishioners, for 
the very fault of which he complained. I have 
often told him not to notice those things, as he 
stood alone ; but he seemed to think it his duty. 
It is a painful pleasure to me now to see the poor 
people from the country, who come down to tell 
their sorrows, and call to see '' ]Missis," and to 
hear them speak of his kindness. I make a 
point of asking them, ' Did Mr. Gordon ever tell 
you to kill "buckra," or to do bad V Poor things ! 
they are shocked that I should ask such ques- 
tions. To some he has oiven monev to buv 
clothes to go to church ; to others books and 
bibles ; and one of the documents which was 
made so much of was a hjnnji-book given to Paul 
Bogle, in which he had written, ^With the 
Christian regards of G. W. Gordon.' . . . His 
last letter was a masterpiece of resignation and 
submission to the divine will. It has been said 
to be a forgery ; but, happily, many have seen the 
original There is also another, written in the 
* Wolverine ' the day after he was on board, 
giving directions about his affairs, in case any- 
thing should happen to him. It fills fifteen 
pages ; and, so anxious was he that no one should 



134 Life of Hon. G. W, Gordon. 

lose by him, that I believe he has named every 
shilling he owed (not much, except to his agents, 
to whom the greater part of his properties and 
life-policies were mortgaged), and how it was to 
be paid. But such was the confusion during 
Satanic law, that nearly all was stolen or de- 
stroyed. ... I must leave a subject on which I 
could dwell for ever. His memory, I have no 
doubt, will be honoured by all the wise and good. 
We cannot bring him back, and I wish no more 
• blood shed; too much is crying from earth to 
heaven. But I would die a beggar to see his 
character vindicated." 

The foregoing letter of Mrs. Shannon, a vene- 
rable lady of sixty- seven, corroborates in general 
the representation I had given, and mentions other 
circumstances presenting the character of her son- 
in-law under very engaging aspects. Beyond the 
rudimentary and imperfect instruction of a country 
school, he was self-educated. 

[It grieves me to know that Dr. Bowerbank had 
given currency to the slanders referred to in Mrs. 
Shannon's admirable letter. I w^as in Jamaica 
at the time of the dispute between Mr. Gordon 
and his father, and had communications, oral and 
written, with both parties on the subject, and 
can testify that the Doctor's imputations are utterly 
at variance with the truth. — D. F.] 

" Now it is universally acknowledged " (proceeds 



Apprehension^ Trial, and Death. 135 

Dr. King) " that notliing whatever was brought 
home to the accused, implicating liim in the 
Morant Bay riot, and that the whole proceeding 
was a sheer mockery of justice. The Pall Mall 
Gazette gave expression to the national mind in 
saying : ' There is not a point in the proceedings 
which is not an outrage on the plainest dictates 
of natural justice and common and good sense. 
It appears to us that on this evidence Mr. Gor- 
don might just as well have been convicted of 
the massacre of Delhi or Cawnpore. . . . That 
any human creature, fit we do not say to govern 
a colony, but to act as a country magistrate in 
cases of slight importance, should have ratified 
such a sentence, and ordered it to be carried into 
execution, we could not have believed unless it 
had occurred ! ' In an admirable pamphlet on 
the case of Mr. Gordon, my friend, the Hon. and 
Eev. Baptist W. ISToel, characterizes the evidence 
brought against him as nothing but perjured tes- 
timony and the flimsiest allegations ! The Tinfies 
correspondent (March 30) says : ' I may as well 
express here my opinion that no evidence has 
been given to prove either that Mr. Gordon could 
have been legally convicted of complicity with 
the rioters or rebels of Morant Bay, or that there 
was anything like organization among the negroes 
throughout the island with a view to rebel.' '' 
My friend, the Eev. H. Eenton, of Kelso, 



136 Life of Hon: G. W. Gordon. 

whose leading position in our denomination is 
well known, has sent me the following interesting 
statement : — 

'' The first time I met him (Mr. Gordon) was 
at the close of forenoon worship in the Eev. Mr. 
Watson's Church, Kingston (United Presbyterian) 
on the first Lord's day of May, 1855, when I 
was introduced to him and Mrs. Gordon, Mr. and 
Mrs. Eoxburgh, Mr. W. W. Anderson, and others 
of similar standino;, who, with Mrs. Watson and 
her daughter, remained to conduct the Sabbath 
school ; and I was struck with the fine spectacle 
of those of highest intelligence and social posi- 
tion in the congregation devoting themselves to 
that service, and led thereby to form a very 
favourable impression of their o^tl Christianity. 
That impression was confirmed, as regarded ^Mr. 
and Mrs. Gordon, on a visit to Cherry Gardens a 
few days after, where I spent two nights, and 
where all I saw of him corresponded with what 
Mr. Watson had told me of his active, earnest, 
generous, godly character. 

" On returning to Kingston in Januarj^, 1856, 
T accepted his kind and pressing invitation ta 
spend a few days and enjoy the mountain scenery, 
which in an excursion to Newcastle on mv former 
visit had so enchanted me by its magnificence 
and beauty. But a severe illness shortly after 
my arrival led to my detention for several weeks, 



Aioprehension, Trial, and Death, 137 

and brought me into siicli close and confidential 
contact with my host and his amiable and accom- 
plished wife, -as afforded me the opportunity' of 
knowing them more intimately than friends com- 
monly do each other after the social intercourse 
of many years. A\Tien my condition was most 
critical, he sat up with me by night, and Mrs. 
Gordon rarely left my bedside by day. The bed- 
room had one entrance from the drawing-room, 
and during my confinement he every morning, 
before startinoj for Kino'ston — seven miles dis- 
tant — conducted family worship by my bedside, 
no other than Mrs. Gordon being in the room, 
while the door stood open into the drawing-room, 
where the servants and others were assembled. 
His prayers, simple, appropriate, fervent, had to 
me all the charm of true devotion. The sacred 
fellowship of that season established mutual con- 
fidence, and on my convalescence he talked unre- 
servedly upon all things which occupied his mind. 
I found that he was im^lersed in business as a 
merchant and as a planter, and thought that he 
had far too many things, and especially far too 
many ^Jamaica estates, in hand. He had an 
ardent temperament, and a vigorous and elastic 
constitution. He both undertook and overtook a 
vast amount of work. Nor were his interest and 
energy less in public, benevolent, and religious 
causes, than in his own secular concerns. I never 



138 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

knew a man who seemed to me actuated- by more 
honourable and unselfish and purer motives. He 
had an enthusiastic admiration of the British 
Constitution, and an exalted estimate of the dig- 
nity, rights, and privileges of British citizenship. 
He attributed to corrupt local administration, and 
to the corrupt state of a large portion of the white 
society in Jamaica, the counteraction and failure 
of the beneficial designs and legitimate fruits of 
British legislation, and mentioned to me various 
men of position, whom he had to meet with 
courtesy in public and business affairs, but whose 
household thresholds he would scorn to cross, and 
whom he would not admit within his own. He 
thought for himself on every matter, was very 
self-reliant, and what he judged right he did 
without heed of opposition or opinion. His de- 
fect seemed to me impulsiveness, which, in the 
ardour and generosity of his nature, was apt to 
lead him to engage or undertake what it might 
be very embarrassing or difficult for him to fulfil. 
He was the natural enemy of injustice and im- 
morality in every form and in every quarter, and 
publicly and privately denounced both unspar- 
ingly, wherever obtruded in act or principle. In 
such a community it was inevitable that he should 
have many enemies. But I never knew a man 
more candid to opponents, or less disposed to take 
offence at opposition, or more free of malevolence. 



■Apprelunsion, Trial and Death. 139 

Towards Ms bitterest foes lie harboured no per- 
sonal ill-will, and on reading or referring to the 
vituperation of any of them, w^ould say, ' Poor 
man, he is to be pitied, I forgive him.' The 
Christian spirit dwelt in him, and I had often 
been struck to observe with what readiness, 
seriousness, and zest, after the conversation had 
been engrossed with political or secular topics, he 
would turn to the spiritual, and evince that in 
the truths and promises of the gospel he found 
his rest and refreshment. On parting with Mr. 
and Mrs. Gordon, I felt, as I have felt on every 
remembrance of that visit, that had I been their 
brother I could not have been treated Avith greater 
kindness and confidence by either, and of both I 
had a high estimate, intellectually, morally, and 
spiritually. 

" With these views of him, the tidings on the 
18th of last November, of his seizure, and igno- 
minious and summary execution, as the instigator 
of a wide-spread negro insurrection, shocked me 
beyond any I ever received, and, as you know, I 
was equally incredulous of his guilt and of such 
an insurrection. At an evening missionary meet- 
ing in my church on the first Lord's day of De- 
cember, I expressed my belief that unless he had 
become insane, in which case he was not a re- 
sponsible agent, it was impossible, from his under- 
standing, his intelhgence, his principles, and Iiis 



140 Life of Hon, G. W, Gordon. 

character, that he could be a party in any 
treasonable or bloody movement. I shall only 
add that, while well aware how man may degene- 
rate, and the best may fall, and the pressure of 
difficulties or the power of temptation may lead 
individuals to act in utter inconsistency with 
their habitual character, none of his letters yet 
brought to light, whether public or private, down 
to the last, are in the slightest degree at variance 
with my former estimate of him as a man of 
superior intellect, of high principle, of pure cha- 
racter, and of genuine piety." Dr. K. proceeds, 
'' The closing manifestations of Mr. Gordon's 
mind and heart entirely harmonize with my ante- 
cedent impressions. His bearing, when he was 
apprehended — when he was in the 'Wolverine' 
— when he was on his trial — when he was on 
the scaffold-^all was in perfect keeping with 
what I knew of him previously. His last letter 
to his wife was a perfect transcript of the man, 
recalling him in every element of his faith, frame, 
and practice. One request it contains, which not 
a few will deem to be superfluous, that his poor 
wife should not be ashamed of his end. Tens of 
thousands have, with the Hon. and Eev. Bstptist 
Noel, seen in it a subject of admiring wonder. 
Accused of the foulest crimes, condemned without 
evidence, confronted with sudden and ignominious 
death, severed from his friends, and encompassed 



Apprehension, Trial , and Death. 141 

with contumely in the direst extremity, he dis- 
played a meekness, calmness, fortitude, and hope, 
such as have few parallels even in Christian mar- 
tyrology. 

" As the particulars of Mr. Gordon's end may 
not be known to all my readers, I indicate them 
briefly. When implored to escape he declared 
that he was innocent, and refused to flee as if he 
were guilty. When he gave himself up, and was 
denied a civil trial, he simply expressed his con- 
viction that he would be sacrificed. On board 
ship the matter of derision against him was, that 
while fed on biscuits and water he sang hymns! 

" Let the British public observe that Mrs. 
Gordon, bereaved and slandered, is also left ^ des- 
titute.' If her husband was murdered under the 
forms of law, she is entitled to whatever com- 
pensation can be made to her for so great a 
wrong. If his labours and death have been 
essential to that change of constitution from 
which so much good is now expected for the 
island, there is the more consideration due 
to his widow. There will be great difliculty in 
terminating the Jamaica case so as to do justly 
and love mercy ; and a public provision for Mrs. 
Gordon would be one of the best means of clear- 
ing, us from the reproach of those ' deplorable 
events/ Whatever else be done, I suggest to 
the friends of righteousness and humanity to 



V 



142 Life of Hon. G. F. Gordon, 



insist on this measure. There is still room for 
enlightenment from the labours of the commis- 
sion, and we may not speak unqualifiedly till we 
have their eagerly looked for digest. 

" But as the evidence now lies heaped before 
us in the journals,' we have floggings from morn- 
ing to night ; floggings and exposure of women ; 
floggings before trial ; floggings before exe- 
cution; floggings with cats indurated by piano 
wires ; we have slaughter of unresisting 
throngs with no arms in their hands; undis- 
ciplined Maroons let • loose for the work of 
dfeath, and then thanked in the Queen's name, 
with assurance of her high approbation. We 
have wretched creatures after their punish- 
ment running the gauntlet between files of sol- 
diers pelting them with stones. We have Bri- 
tish ofiicers reporting tortures and carnage in low 
slang phrase, and with mirthful levity. And all 
this has been done to suppress an outbreak, 
hideous indeed, but local, having its origin in 
much sense of wrong, whether real or imagined, 
and so little concerted or formidable, that Mr. 
Eyre summed up the catastrophe by saying, 
' There was no organization. . . . No stand has 
ever been made against the troops ; and though 
we are not only in complete military occupation 
of, but have traversed with troops all the dis- 
turbed districts, not a single casualty has befallen 



i 



Apprehensio'iiy Trial, and Death. 143 

any of our soldiers or sailors, and they are all in 
good health.' 

"Is there loatter here for conflicting senti- 
ment ? In justice to oiir common countrj^, let ns 
unite in saying, Such things may not be in the 
British dominions, — riQ;hteousness forhids them, 
humanity forbids them, true policy denounces 
their mischievousness. Jamaica will never be 
cultivated by Europeans ; we depend for its pro- 
ductiveness on the good-will and confidence of 
the negro population. So in India our prosperity 

rests on the amitv of native races. Let us be- 

«/ 

ware of inaugurating a policy of exasperation 
utterly antagonistic to our Christian profession, 
and which can only be fatal in its issues to 
our colonial empire. 

" As yet the authorities at home stand clear of 
the reported atrocities. Xot a word has dropped 
from Earl Eussell and Mr. Gladstone that is un- 
worthy of the occasion ; nor has Mr. Cardwell, 
though speaking more ambiguously, committed 
himself to any reprehensible line of action. The 
situation is truly critical, and a false move by 
the Cabinet would be most melancholy. It 
would be easy, no doubt, in the turmoil of the 
hour and its strife of tongues, to ehcit apologies 
for light healing of deep woimds. But a future 
Macaulay would nitike small account of flimsy 
pretexts and ephemeral altercations ; and while 



144 Life of Hon. G. W, Gordon. 

no one wishes vengeance, a Ministry that should 
compromise official faithfulness at such a crisis 
would incur certain and lasting infamy. The 
judgment of the country on what has passed 
must be unmistalieably presented to all climes 
and times. Our statesmen know their respon- 
sibility ; and they will act as being aware that 
the course they adopt consequent on the fullest 
intelligence and judicial consideration, is largely 
to affect the fair fame of England, the successful 
government of its colonies, and its influence for 
good through all nations of the earth." 

At a meeting of the Baptist Union, the sub- 
joined resolution was passed; and it will ever 
redound to the honour of that denomination 
which •has done and suffered so much for poor 
Jamaica : — 

''' The Eev. J. H. Hinton moved, and the Eev. 
W. Brock, D.D., seconded, the next resolution, which 
was not carried by acclamation but by the whole 
assembly rising in silence : ' That this Union thus 
places on record its conviction that the arrest, 
trial, and execution of George William Grordon 
were at once illegal and unjust, and expresses its 
profound sympathy with Mrs. Gordon under the 
life-long affliction occasioned by so severe a loss.' 
Mr. Hinton hoped that the case would yet come 
before a British jury." 



t 



145 



CHAPTEE VIII. 



AN EPITOME OF THE WHOLE HISTOEY OF THE 
'' JAMAICA OUTBKEAK." 



The following, which I have quoted from the 
^' British Quarterly Eeview/' is the best history of 
the Jamaica outbreak that has yet appeared : — 

" Towards the end of last October the people of 
England were startled by the arrival of a tele- 
gram announcing that the island of Jamaica waB 
in a state of insurrection, and that troops and 
ships of war had been hurriedly summoned from 
our l^orth American and other adjacent colonies. 
In the interval, before the detailed news arrived, 
the greatest unxiety was felt in this country to 
know how or why the insurrection had arisen. 
Ere long the detailed account of the outbreak 
arrived, in the form of a lengthy despatch from 
Governor Eyre, accompanied by several numbers 
of the Colonial Standard, to which he referred 
Mr. Cardwell for additional information. It ap- 
pears that on Saturday, October 7th, a Court of 
Petty Sessions had been held at Morant Bay, and 
whilst a black man was being brought up for trial 
before the justices, a large number of the pea- 

10 



146 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon, 

santiy, armed with bludgeons, entered the town, 
openly expressing their determination to rescue 
the man about to be tried, should he be convicted. 
One of their party having created a disturbance 
in the court-house was taken into custody; 
whereupon the mob rushed in, rescued the pri- 
soner, and maltreated the policeman in attend- 
ance. 'But so little,' says Mr. Eyre, 'did the 
magistrates think of the occurrence, that no steps 
were taken to communicate mth the Executive. 
Two days afterwards the magistrates issued a 
warrant for the apprehension of twenty- eight of : 
the persons principally concerned in the assault 
and riot. Upon the arrival of the police at the 
settlement where the parties lived, at Stoney Gut, i 
three or four miles from Morant Bay, a shell was ' 
blown, and the negroes collected in large numbers, 
with_ arms in their hands. They caught and 
handcuffed three of the policemen, and adminis- 
tered to them an oath binding them to take the 
side of the blacks against the magistrates. And 
here be it observed that the quarrel between the 
blacks and the whites appears to have originated 
in the attempt made to expel the negroes from 
an abandoned plantation called Middleton, on , 
which the negroes had been settled for years, but 
of which Mr. Anderson was seeking to deprive 
them. On receiving intelligence of what had 
taken place, Governor Eyre requested the General 



History of the Jamaica Outhreak, 147 

in command of Her Majesty's troops^ to get ready 
a hundred men for embarkation, and the senior 
naval officer was requested to send a man-of-war 
to receive the troops and to take them to their 
destination. Having done this, Mr. Eyre returned 
to his house in the mountains in order to be pre- 
sent at a dinner-party. This, which is mentioned 
by himself in his despatch, is a sufficient indica- 
tion that at that time the Governor did not sup- 
pose that there was any risk of an alarming rising 
in the island. 

"The next day, however (Thursday, October 12), 
he received a private letter containing a report 
that the blacks had risen and murdered Baron 
Ketelholdt and others, and stating that it was 
rumoured that the rebels were advancing along 
the line of the Blue IMountain valley. This 
report proved to be but too well founded. It 
appears that on Wednesday, October 11th, when 
the vestry had met at Morant Bay, about four 
o'clock drums were heard, and a large body of 
rioters, reckoned by Mr. Cook at from 400 to 500, 
appeared, ' armed,' says Mr. Cook, in his narrative, 
''with sticks, cutlasses, spears, guns, and other 
deadly weapons.' It appears, however, that the 
guns were some old muskets taken by the rioters 
from the police-station, near the court-house, and 
which had neither flints nor cartridges. The 
magistrates, warned some hours before of the ap- 

10* 



148 Life of Hon, G. W. Gordmi, 

proach of the rioters, had drawn up a volunteer 
corps, twenty-two in number, in front of the court- 
house. On the approach of the rioters within a 
few yards, the Eiot Act having been already read, the 
captain of the volunteers, alarmed by the violence 
and demeanour displayed by the rioters, and by a 
volley of stones which had been thrown by them, 
gave the order to fire. Some twenty of the 
negroes fell, but the remainder appear to have 
been infuriated by the loss of their comrades, and 
attacked the volunteers, who, overpowered, took 
refuge inside the court-house, where the Custos, 
magistrates, and other gentlemen were already 
assembled. Upon this the negroes surrounded 
the house, smashed the windows, firing into the 
court-house with the rifles taken from some of the 
volunteers, while others of that body returned 
their fire with good effect, until, most unhappily, 
the court-house itself took fire. 

''The Custos then put out a flag of truce. The 
rioters asked wdiat it meant, and were answered, 
' Peace.' They said they did not want peace, they 
wanted war. A second flag of truce was put out 
with no better eff'ect, the rebels crying, 'War, 
war.' On the roof of the court-house falling in, 
through the fire that had been set to the premises, 
the Custos and other gentlemen burst open the 
doors and ran down the steps, the rebels attacking 
them in every direction. The Custos was armed 



History of the Jamaica Outlreah. 149 

with a sword which he took up. Each endeavonred 
to save himself. The mob cried, ' ]Srow we have 
the Baron; kill him !' and lond shonts announced 
that the deed had been done. 

*'Dr. Gerard was called to come out, the mob 
protesting that they would save him, which, in 
fact, they did ; and a few others were also spared, 
but nearly all the whites who were in the court- 
house were murdered or severely wounded. It is, 
however, worth noting that thirty-five of the party 
in the court-house escaped with their lives. But 
what, perhaps, excited the greatest emotion was 
the rumour, that in the words of Governor Eyre's 
despatch. 

" ' The most frightful atrocities were perpetrated. 
The island curate of Bath, the Eev. F. Herschel, 
is said to have had his tongue cut out whilst still 
alive, and an attempt is said to have been made 
to skin him. One person, Mr. Charles Price, a 
black gentleman, formerly Member of Assembly, 
was ripped open and his entrails taken out. One 
gentleman, Lieutenant Hall, of the volunteers, is 
said to have been pushed into an outbuilding, which 
w^as then set on fire, andkept there tillhewas literally 
roasted alive. Many are said to have had their eyes 
scooped out ; heads were cleft open and the brains 
taken out. The Baron's fingers were cut off, and 
carried aw^ay as trophies by the murderers. Some 
bodies were half burnt, others horribly battered. 



150 Life of Hmi. G. W. Gooxlon. 

Indeed, the whole outrage could only be paralleled 
by the atrocities of the Indian mutiny. "Women, 
as usual on such occasions, were even more bar- 
barous and brutal than the men.' 

" Such was the -statement made by Governor 
Eyre in his despatch written nine days after the ter- 
rible affair, and we cannot but regard it as deeply 
discreditable to the Governor that he should have 
thus given his official sanction to these rumours, 
instead of taking the trouble to make some in- 
quiry whether they were founded on fact. It 
would have been only necessary for him to send 
for the medical gentlemen who examined the 
bodies, or for those who buried them, and he 
would then have ascertained w^hat was subse- 
quently proved before the Commission, that such 
frightful atrocities were never committed at all. 
The bodies showed the wounds that had been 
inflicted upon them during the violent struggle 
that took place, but there were no indications of 
any attempt at mutilation, Avhether of the living 
or of the dead. Bearing this in mind, it arouses 
our indignation to find that in a despatch from 
General O'Connor, dated October 15th, he men- 
tions that he has hung one woman — although she 
had been recommended to mercy by the court- 
martial which tried her — because, he says, 'the 
atrocities perpetrated by women on the occasion of 
the massacre of Baron Von Ketelholdt and others, 



History of the Jamaica Outlvdah. 151 

communicated verbally to me by the Gustos, Mr. 
Georges, decided me to confirm the sentence, and 
to ignore the recommendation to mercy/ That is 
to say, he hung tliis woman, not because she in- 
dividually had heen convicted of perpetrating these 
atrocities, but because ' women ' were supposed to 
have perpetrated them, and, therefore, it seems, 
he thought it desirable to hang her as a warning, 
or punishment — what shall we say ? — to those 
other women ; the fact being that these atrocities 
which the women were supposed to have per- 
petrated, had not been perpetrated at all. 

" After the commission of this horrible mas- 
sacre, for which no one, so far as we have seen, 
has ventured to offer any palliation, some of the 
rioters set off on an expedition through the east 
end of the island, and are said to have plundered 
the small town of Bath, and on the evening of the 
next day they attacked and plundered Duckinfield 
House. At this place, w^e are told, no one was 
hurt ; but they next made for Amity Hall, the 
residence of Mr, Hire, attorney, or agent for the 
estate. This gentleman was killed ; and his son 
and two other persons were severely wounded ; 
but Dr. Crowder, who was ill in bed, was spared. 
They next made for Hordley House, where many 
ladies and children had taken refuge ; but here 
they were met by fifty of the black labourers on 
the Hordley estate, who refused to allow them to 



152 Life of Hon, G. F. Gordoii. 

approach. While parleying, the rest of the Hord- 
ley servants took the ladies and gentlemen to a 
place of safety, and next day escorted them to the 
protection of the troops. After their departure 
the house was sacked and gntted by the mob. It 
is difficult after this to trace the proceedings of 
the rioters, but there is no doubt that during two 
days the east end of the island was at their mercy, 
and the greatest alarm was felt by the white in- 
habitants. The measures taken by the authorities 
were, however, very prompt. All troops that 
could be procured, and a large body of Maroons 
were sent in three columns through the disturbed 
districts. No resistance, however, was offered in 
any quarter. Eumours prevailed as to assem- 
blages of rebels, and their military preparations, 
but, if such existed at all, they invaiiably van- 
ished on the approach of the troops. 

" ^ Different persons/ says Governor Eyre, 
'have reported seeing from several hundreds to as 
many thousands (of rebels) at a time, and Colonel 
Hobbs reports in one of his letters, that there 
were still thousands of rebels around him. No 
stand has ever been made against the troops, and 
though we are not only in complete military 
occupation of, but have traversed the disturbed 
districts, not a single casualty has befallen our 
soldiers or sailors, and they are all in good 
health/ 



i 



History of the Jamaica OuthreaJc. 153 

" He proceeds, ' A large number of rebels have 
been shot, with arms in their hands ; a great many 
prisoners have been tried and hung, shot, or flogged, 
and a considerable number of prisoners are still 
awaiting trial by court-martiaL' In fact, the 
outbreak, insurrection, or riot — whatever name 
ought to be applied to it — appears to have blazed 
up in a moment, and then to have disappeared 
with almost equal rapidity. 

" Before we continue our narrative, we must 
diverge, for a moment, to the veiy important 
question, w^hat the real intentions were by which 
the rebels were actuated. The whole white 
population, including all the authorities and the 
Governor himself, appear to have yielded, without 
a moment's doubt or hesitation, to the conviction 
that the whole negro population of Jamaica had 
been plotting to shake off the dominion of Eng- 
land, to form themselves into a republic, after the 
fashion of Hayti, and to commence operations 
by a general massacre of the white inhabitants 
of the island ; except, indeed, that this tale was 
varied by the assumption that the English women 
were to be kept as slaves. The language used by 
Mr. Eyre on this point is of the strongest kind. 
In his despatch of October 20, he says, 'It is my 
duty to state, most unequivocally, that Jamaica 
has been, and, to a certain extent, still is in the 
the greatest jeopardy ; the whole colony has been 



154 Life of Hmi. G. W. Gordon. 

upon a mine, wliich required but a spark to 
ignite it.' And tlie same sentiment was repeated 
by him in his address to the Assembly, in even 
more violent terms. In fact, he announced to his 
surprised auditors that ' so wide-spread a rebellion, 
so rapidly and effectually put down, is not to be 
met with in history !' 

^^The Eeport of the Commission has proved that 
this assumption on the part of Mr. Eyre and 
others was not founded upon fact. The Com- 
missioners, indeed, speak of the rising as having 
been of a dangerous character, and they state that 
not a few of the negroes appear to have contem- 
plated the death of the white inhabitants, or 
their expulsion from the island ; but, at the same 
time, their deliberate conclusion is that there was 
no conspiracy of the kind supposed. In fact, it 
seems clear that the negroes, though greatly dis- 
satisfied at their expulsion from the lands, and at 
the impossibility of obtaining justice from the 
planter-magistrates, had not formed any design of 
throwing off the authority of the Queen, or of 
massacreing the whites. It is, we fear, but too 
probable that they meant mischief to a few indi- 
viduals, and that they attacked the court-house 
with the view of inflicting vengeance upon those 
persons, and then, maddened by the volley fired 
at them, and by their success in mastering the 
whites in the combat that ensued, some of them, 



History of the Jamaica Oitibreah. 155 

in the wild excitement of the moment, uttered 
cries and exclamations that seemed to indicate 
an intention to murder all the Europeans. 
""^"But what demonstrates that there was no 
real conspiracy to massacre the whites generally 
is this pregnant and striking fact, that, notwith- 
standing the excitement of the rioters after the 
deadly struggle at IMorant Bay, that town remained 
during the whole of the ensuing night completely 
at their mercy, and not one single individual was 
killed by them at that place after the massacre ; 
and again, that during the two or three days in 
which the whole of the eastern end of the island 
w^as completely at their mercy, only two out of 
large numbers of men, women, and children who 
were found there, were killed, while upwards of a 
hundred are mentioned as having escaped from 
the various plantations. No doubt, very great 
terror prevailed, and in some cases threatening 
language was used by the negroes. The actual 
result, that, except Mr. Hire and one other person, 
no one was killed, amounts to a demonstration 
that the negroes were not actuated, like the Se- 
poys in India, by a deliberate intention to exter- 
minate the Europeans. On this point, too, we 
have the verj^ important testimony given by the 
Eev, Alfred Bourne, who had gone out on liis 
father's behalf to look after an estate at Man- 
chioneal, which was in the very heart of the 



156 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon, 

disturbed districts, and who informs us that he 
remained there quite openly during the whole 
time of the disturbances, with a party of seven 
other English in his house. When the rioters 
approached, two of the party took fright, and 
were concealed for one night by the negroes, but 
not the slightest injury or insult was offered to 
any of them ; and although tlie rioters plundered 
some houses belonging to Europeans who had fled 
on their approach, and two houses were burned, 
they did not display the least desire to extermi- 
nate the English. Two days after the riot, Mr. 
Bourne assembled the people in the church and 
addressed them, commenting in severe terms on 
what had been done, and they seemed to be 
heartily ashamed of themselves, although, indeed, 
it was only a small portion of the people who 
had joined in these acts of incendiarism and 
plunder. The following day, however, Mr. Bourne 
heard shots fired in the village, and saw columns 
of smoke arising from it, and on running down 
he found that some men belonging to Captain 
Hole's column had arrived, and were shooting the 
people without any form of trial whatever. Two 
men were killed near Mr. Bourne, one of whom 
he knew to be a most respectable negro, who had 
had nothing whatever to do with the riot. In 
the course of a few days a court-martial was 
formed, and it is very remarkable that the presi- 



History of the Jamaica OuthreaJc. 157 

dent of the court-martial Tras a young man 
named Warmington, a clerk belonging to one of 
the estates, whose only title to sit on the court- 
martial Tvas that a commission as lieutenant of 
volunteers was sent down to him at the moment. 
He was one of those who had been severely 
wounded at the court-house, and some of his 
property had been plundered. Xaturally, there- 
fore, he was full of exasperation against the 
rioters, and this was sufficiently evinced by the 
yeij striking fact that, out of thirty-seven per- 
sons tried before this court-martial thirty- 
six were hung, and one received a hundred 
lashes"'^ 

"This brings us to the turning-point in our 
narrative. ^\Tien the insurrection had completely 
vanished-^when all occasion for the further dis- 
play of force had ceased, and when the authorities, 
in the words of Governor Eyre, ' had leisure to 
deal with and punish the insurgents.' This point, 
according to Governor Eyre's despatch, was fully 
reached by Sunday, October 15. 'By that time,' 
he says, ' all our most important work being done, 
and the troops comfortably established in their 
barracks, we had for the first time a night of Cjuiet 
and rest,' On the following morning he himself 

* It is reported that before the Commission the numbers 
were stated at somewhat less ; but we have reason to behave 
that the above statement is the really accurate one. 



158 Life of Hon, G. F. Gordon. 

returned to Eliiigston, after appointing a court- 
martial to try the prisoners at Morant Bay. ' On 
that day twenty-seven prisoners were tried and 
hung ' (we are now quoting Governor Eyre's des- 
patch). 'By October 18,' he adds, 'several 
courts-martial had been held, and capital punish- 
ment had been inflicted More 

rebels had been captured and shot 

Colonel Hobbs had seen and shot a good many 
rebels.' Somewhat later on, he adds, ' A good 
many prisoners had been tried and hung, shot^ or 
flogged.' A few extracts from the letters of the 
officers engaged will sufficiently exhibit the mode 
in which they carried on the w^ork of punishment. 
Here, for example, is one of Lieutenant Adcock's 
despatches to General Nelson. ' In the morning,' 
he says, ' I first flogged four and hung six rebels. 
At Leith Hall there were a few prisoners, all of 
whom I flogged.' And then he burned eleven 
houses and a chapel. He mentions that on the 
previous evening he found sixty-seven prisoners at 
Golden Grove, and ' disposed ' of as many as. pos- 
sible, but was too tired to continue after dark. 
But now let it be observed that in the same official 
despatch, he says : ' I consider the state of the 
country quiet through this district ;' thus demon- 
strating that he, at least, was not hanging and 
flogging as a precautionary measure. Again, at 
the end of October, Captain Ford states, ' This 



History of the Jamaica Outlreah 159 

morning we made a raid with thirty men ; back 
at 4 p.m., bringing prisoners. Having flogged 
nine men, and burnt three negro houses, we then 
had a court-martial on the prisoners, who 
amounted to fifty or sixty. Several were flogged 
without court-martial, on a simple examination. 
One man, John Anderson, a kind of parson or 
schoolmaster, got fifty lashes ; one man got one 
hundred; the other eight were hanged or shot.' 
The same man writes : — 

" ' The black troops shot about 160 people on 
their march from Port Antonio to Manchioneal ; 
hanged seven in Manchioneal, and shot three on 
our way to Port Morant. This is a picture of 
martial law. The soldiers enjoy it ; the in- 
habitants have to dread it ; if they run on their 
approach, they are shot for running away.' 

" Now the very paper which inserts Captain 
Ford's letter, states that 'in the neighbouring 
parishes the greatest order prevails.' Well might 
the Saturday Revievj say of Captain Pord — ' If 
Ford escapes hanging, except on full proof that 
he is a shameless liar, there is no justice in 
Jamaica.' So, again, we have Colonel Hobb's 
oflicial despatch, showing how he shot and hanged 
rebels on the authority of Paul Bogle's valet ' a 
little fellow,' interrogated with a revolver at his 
head. His letter is dated on the eighth day 
after that of the outbreak, and he mentions that 



160 Life of Hon, G. F. Gordon. 

he is Agoing to slioot some prisoners to-morrow 
morning.' On October 31 — no less than twenty 
days from the outbreak — we are informed by the 
papers that, ^ at six o'clock this morning/ the 
fifteen condemned, to death on the previous day 
were hanged, except two, who received 100 and 
150 lashes respectively. On that day 'the court- 
martial resumed its sittings/ and thirteen men 
were sentenced to be hanged. ' The sentences I 
were carried out the same evening, in the pre- ' 
sence of the untried rebels.' The court-martial 
consisted of Lieutenant Brand, Ensign Taylor, 
and Ensign Cole. On the 1st November, this 
court-martial hanged seven more ; w^hile (unless 
the newspapers tell lies) ninety-nine prisoners, 
'^ against whom there was no proof that they were 
ever in arms, or present at any murder, &c., were, 
with some exceptions, catted and sent adrift,' 
Again, in the Army and Navy Gazette, of Decem- 
ber 16, a brief summary is given of the services 
of the 6 til, under Colonel Hobbs. 

"The writer describes one negro settlement, I 
which he helped to destroy. He says : — 'It is 
three and a half miles long. ... In Moss 
Island, the rebels live in comfort; at Mount 
Lebanus in affluence ; but in Somerset it was 
downright luxury — boarded houses, cedar tables 
and chairs, quantities of beautiful glass and china, 
carved mahogany bedsteads, &c., displayed an 



Hisicrry of the Jamaica Oitibreah 161 

amount of comfort unknown in England even ; 
and when to this we add poultry, the horses, 
mules, pigs, and extensive provision-grounds, it 
makes it the more remarkable that people like 
this should rebel.' ^The regiment,' he adds, 
^ passed through this beautiful spot, firing every 
house in it, except three. Afterwards, some 
negroes w^ere caught sight of, and pursued. Captain 
Field showed extreme gallantry, and shot the 
rebels right and left ; and a man named ConoUy 
never ceased firing, killing a man at every shot. 
Captain Eoworth leading on his men in his usual 
gallant style V 

" They went to Monklands' ^ shot nine, and 
hung three ; made rebels hang each other ; effect 
on the living was terrific : — country beautiful ; 
grazing lands, stock varied and abundant. Burned 
every house, except three widows'. ' Next day 
shot eighteen rebels.' ^ Xext day, large numbers 
of prisoners shot; next day many others were 
shot ;' and so forth. 

" We could add largely, if necessary, to these 
extracts. They appear, however, to us to be suf- 
ficient to show the spirit by which the authorities 
were actuated in punishing the negroes after the 
outbreak was over. The general opinion of the 
upper classes of English society has, we regret to 
say, been on the side of the authorities, and the 
greatest rage and indignation have been warmly 

11 



162 Life of Hon. G, F. Go7^don. 

expressed by nearly all the Conserv^ative press, 
and by a portion of that on the Liberal side, 
against those Englishmen at home who ventured 
to protest against these doings. It is not our 
purpose to defend, those who were thus assailed. 
We merely seek to lay before our readers a brief 
but accurate account of what was done. One 
thing, however, we are bound to notice. It has 
been urged by Governor Eyre himself, and with 
still more vehemence by his defenders at home, 
that he was compelled to use these measures of 
apparent severity in order to strike terror into 
the negroes of Jamaica, on account of their 
overwhelming numbers, and inconsequence of the 
extreme smallness of the force at his disposal. 
On this point we have already shown that, from 
the first, no resistance whatever was made by the j 
negroes- — no organization of any kind was found 
to exist amongst them ; they had no arms except 
the cutlasses or hooks used in cutting the sugar- 
canes, and a few guns. On the other hand, we 
find from the Governor's first dispatch that the 
force in his hands consisted of six men-of-war — 
the ^Wolverine,' ^ Onyx,' 'Lily,' ^Xettle/ ^Ur- 
gent,' and 'Steady,' which number was soon in- | 
creased by the arrival of several other men-of- 
war. He speaks in tliis same dispatch of two 
regiments of regular troops, under the command 
of a Brio^adier-General of the volunteers, the 



History of the Jamaica Outhreak, 163 

pensioners, the Maroons, mounted police, and 
Eoyal Artillery. The Buffs came at once from 
Barbadoes, a black battalion from Xassau, while 
a large force of Maroons was supplied with arms, 
and w^ere certainly not found deficient in zeal in 
the work of slaughter. It really seems to us 
preposterous to say that an English Governor, 
assisted by generals of experience in actual war- 
fare, with a well-armed force of this kind, backed 
by an admiral with several men-of-war, was in 
any risk of being driven out of the island by a 
mob of negroes armed with cutlasses. This 
plea, however, is still put boldly forward by 
those who think that Governor Eyre was jus- 
tified in using these extraordinary measures of 
severity. 

" The real truth, however, appears to have been 
that the authorities were swept away at first by 
panic, and then by the frantic rage by which panic 
is almost always succeeded. They seem to have 
regarded the w^hole negro race as their deadly 
enemies, and to have revelled in the opportunity 
of wreaking vengeance upon them. This feeling 
was exhibited by Governor Eyre himself, in his 
violent and undignified address to the Legislature 
after the affair was over ; but still more strikingly 
in the shameful letter written by the Adjutant- 
General (Col. Elkington) to Col. Hobbs, and which 
ran as follows : — 

11* 



164 Life of Hon, 0. W. Gordon. 

^'^11, A.M., ISth October. 
" ' Dear Colonel, — I send yoii an order to push on at 
once to Stoney Gnt, but I trust you are there already. Hole 
is doing splendid service with, his men about Manchioneal^ 
and shooting every black man who cannot give an account 
of himself. 

" ' Nelson, at Port Antonio, is hanging, like fun, by 
court-martial. 

" ' I hope you will not send us any prisoners. Civil law 
can do nothing. 

. • • • ' • • 

" ' Do punish the blackguards well. 
" ' Yours in haste, 
" * (Signed) John Elkington, D.A.G.' 

" One of the most striking incidents in this 
disgraceful history was that which we deliberately 
and confidently call the judicial murder of Mr. 
Gordon. This case stands by itself, and will 
assuredly be looked back upon with the same 
feeling of indignation and amazement as that with 
which we look back upon some of the infamous 
political murders which stain the annals of this 
country. Mr. Gordon was the illegitimate son, by a 
slave-mother, of a much-respected Jamaica planter, 
whose name he inherited. The Eev. Dr. King, w^ho 
knev/ him well, writes that, ' being a boy of good 
natural parts, he taught himself, with very little 
difficulty, to read, write, and cast accounts. 
Tlirough the reverses of the colony,' says Dr. 
King, ' the father, from being very rich, came to 



History of the Jamaica Outlreah 165 

lose his all, and the coloured son bought his 
estate, not, however, to deprive him of it, but to 
leave him in occupancy, surrounded by the com- 
forts he had been accustomed to enjoy. . . . Mr. 
Gordon was tenderly sensitive. One day, as we 
were walking together, he became pensive and 
absorbed. After a little while, stopping before a 
slight elevation of the grass, he said to me, with 
great emotion, '^My mother was buried there; 
she was a negro and a slave, but she was a kind 
mother to me, and I loved her dearly." As he 
uttered these words his tears trickled down upon 
her grave. 

" ' Mr. Gordon,' continues Dr. King, ^ married 
a white lady, who gave him her hand from re- 
spect for his noble character. All his tastes, 
habits, sympathies, and effort attracted or impelled 
him to the white race; all his hopes for the 
negroes, whom he loved so well, were based upon 
the support or friendship of ' white friends.' An 
admirable letter from Mr. Gordon to the Eight 
Hon. Edward Cardwell, dated March 24, 1865, 
has been published in the Blue-book, and in which 
he discusses the position of affairs in Jamaica 
with great ability. He especially refers to a re- 
cent act of the Legislature, by which fifty lashes 
might be inflicted for acts of petty larceny, and 
he goes on : — ' Eepresentations, unfounded and 
uncharitable, may be wickedly made against the 



166 Life of Hon. 0. W. Gm^don. 

peasants of this country, but, in good truth, they 
are as peaceable, civil, and well-disposed as any 
people can well be, and their character cannot 
justly be unfavourably compared with those of 
the labouring classes of Great Britain, or of the 
continents of Europe or America. What they 
require is what has been neglected — attention to 
their sanitary improvement and education, paro- 
chial asylums for orphans and adults, and relief, 
to some extent, from the excessive taxation on the 
necessary articles of food and clothing, which, in 
its tendency, produced that destitution which 
leads here, as in other countries (to a great extent) 
to petty larcenies. These are the points which 
should have been attended to, but which are lost 
sight of, for the debasing purposes of the whip, as 
if that will instil principles of morality or supply 
the mental and bodily wants of a poor suffering 
community." 

" ' He concludes his letter by saying : — " I feel it 
a bounden duty to bring these subjects to your 
notice. The consequences I cannot control, but I 
sincerely trust that, notwithstanding any expla- 
nation which will, no doubt, be tendered by the 
Governor on these remarks, the facts only of the 
points may be considered. I have a conscientious 
assurance that I intend no undue reflections, and 
only write from the stern obligations of a sense of 
justice and common humanity." 



History of the Jamaica Oitthreah 167 

"There can be no doubt that Mr. Gordon was 
a man of very benevolent feeling, of great libe- 
rality, and that he had a large measure of pa- 
triotic feeling, and a deep indignation against 
"what he believed to be the misrule by which 
the people of the island were kept in a state of 
degradation and discontent. Like many other 
patriots, he, no doubt, was often carried away by 
his feelings into indiscretions of language, both 
in public and in private. These, however, were 
not sufficient to cause him to forfeit the friend- 
ship and hospitality of the leading men of the 
island ; and we have rarely read a more admirable 
letter than the one which he addressed to 
Governor Eyre, refusing for the last time the 
Governor's repeated invitations to Government 
House, upon the ground that Mr. Eyre had falsely 
accused him of misrepresentation, and had never 
withdrawn or apologized for the charge he had 
made. No doubt he had some bitter enemies ; 
and we cannot forbear noticing the intense 
malignity displayed towards him by Dr. Bower- 
bank, who not only took an active part in his 
arrest, but has since been straining every nerve 
to blacken the character of his victim. 

" On the 1 7th of October, however, six days 
after the outbreak, and when, according to the 
statement in his own despatch, the rebellion was 
fairly crushed, Governor Eyre returned from 



168 Life of Hon, G. W. Gordon. 

Morant Bay to Kingston, where no riot of any 
sort or kind had occurred, and where martial law 
had not been proclaimed, and on the same day 
issued the order for the arrest of Mr. Gordon. 
Mr. Gordon had been warned that there was some 
likelihood of proceedings being taken against 
him ; it had been suggested that he should con- 
ceal himself. This, however, he refused to do, 
and, accompanied by a friend, he was actually 
calling on General O'Connor when the arrest took 
place. He was then hurried off on board a gun- 
boat, and on landing at Morant Bay the sailors 
and others were allowed to treat him with shame- 
ful insolence, threatening him with the same fate 
as that of some of the so-called rebels, who were 
at that time hanging from the gallows. One of 
the sailors held up a cat, and said, 'Would you 
like to have a taste of this, old boy ? ' ' He will 
soon catch it,' said another ; while a third added, 
' We are getting ready for you ; you have not 
long to remain here.' His coat apparently had 
been torn off his back, and a blanket was thrown 
over his shoulders during the trial. It lasted 
four or five hours, and the proofs against him 
consisted of a few bits of tittle-tattle, mostly re- 
peated at second-hand, although in some cases 
witnesses, whose depositions were read, might 
have been brought before the court. The main 
evidence against him, however, was what was 



History of the Jamaica Outbreak 169 

called his ' Proclamation/ which was simply an 
imitation, issued some months he/ore, to a public 
meeting, held to consider the state of distress in 
which the people were ; and we do not hesitate 
for an instant in saying that this so-called * Pro- 
clamation ' did not contain so much as a single 
seditious or treasonable word. That, however, 
was not necessary. It was fully understood be- 
fore Mr. Gordon was tried that he was to be 
executed, and it was not of the slightest conse- 
quence to the three youngsters who were appointed 
to try him, whether there was or was not evidence 
against him. As a matter of course, he was 
found cruiltv, and condemned to be hanc^ed. The 
proceedings of the court-martial were forwarded 
to Governor Eyre, and there was ample time for 
the Governor to stay execution, had he chosen to 
do so. On the contrary, however, he contrived 
to discover that the evidence laid before the court- 
martial was of a damning kind; but it is re- 
markable that in his despatch to General O'Con- 
nor, returning the proceedings of the court- 
martial, he actually dwells on the fact that Colonel 
Hobbs had reported ' that he had sufficient evi- 
dence to justify the execution of Mr. Gordon,' as 
being one of the motives for assenting to his 
execution ! Accordingly, on Monday, October 23, 
tiuelve days after the outhreak, Mr. Gordon was 
hanged. 



170 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

" One sliameful feature of this infamous tran- 
saction was the fact, that a letter addressed to 
Mr. Gordon by his solicitor, giving him excellent 
advice as to his line of defence, was deliberately 
kept back from him by General Nelson, mani- 
festly from the base apprehension that it might 
be an assistance to him, and perhaps render his 
conviction impossible. A still more shameful 
trait in the proceedings, was that an immense 
deal was made in the evidence of Mr. Gordon's 
having absented himself from the vestry-meeting 
which was attacked by the negroes ; but although 
he stated that he had been prevented solely by 
ill-health, and two medical men could have been 
brought forward to prove the fact, so hurried were 
the proceedings, that he was not permitted thus 
to overthrow even this vital part of the case 
alleged against him. Altogether, from beginning 
to end, there is scarcely in English history an 
instance of more scandalous perversion of the 
forms of law, for the sake of putting an in- 
nocent man to death, than this trial and execution 
of Mr. Gordon. 

" Such, in brief outline, is the story of the out- 
break in Jamaica and of its suppression. The 
conclusions to which we are led by a very careful 
study of it are these : — 

" 1. That however serious in some respects the 
riot at Morant Bay may have been, there is no 



History of the Jamaica Outhreah 171 

evidence of any conspiracy on the part of the 
negroes to throw off the dominion of the Queen, 
or to exterminate the white population of the 
island. 

" 2. That the riot or insurrection vanished away 
at once, and that not the shadow of an excuse can 
be made out for the proceedings of the authorities, 
even upon the ground that it was necessary to 
strike terror into the negroes in order to stay the 
further spread of the movement. 

" 3, That the riot was not merely suppressed, but 
after its complete extinction, was punished with 
atrocious cruelty. 

" Painful as the story is, it is made much more 
deplorable by the fact, which is, we fear, undeni- 
able, that these atrocities, so far from being re- 
garded with horror by all classes of society at 
home, were fully condoned — and, indeed, almost 
applauded — by the higher classes, and by a large 
part of the middle and working classes as well 
Still, a loud cry of indignation was heard, and it 
was impossible for the Government to refuse a full 
investigation as to the alleged cruelties. A Com- 
mission was sent out ; and its Eeport, though cer- 
tainly leaning, as strict justice would scarcely have 
permitted, to the side of the authorities, yet summed 
up against them in terms of unmistakable condem- 
nation. Governor Eyre was recalled ; and one or 
two individuals — Ensign Lake and Dr. Morris — 



172 Life of Hon. 0. F. Gordon. 

are to be tried by court-martial ; but the Govern- 
ment have not hitherto shown any inclination 
to punish Colonel Nelson, General O'Connor, 
Lieutenant Brand, and others, who are person- 
ally guilty of some of the darkest acts im- 
pugned by the Eeport of the Commission. The 
subject, however, was brought before Parliament 
on July 31, by Mr. Charles Buxton; when Mr. 
Adderley, though in a very reluctant and unsatis- 
factory manner, repudiated the idea that the 
Government did not sternly disapprove of what 
had been done; Mr. Buxton withdrew his re- 
solutions only upon the express understanding 
that the leading actors would be punished ; that 
compensation would be awarded to those who 
had suffered illegally ; and that those now under- 
going punishment for complicity in the rebellion 
would have their sentences remitted, where it could 
safely be done. The question has been warmly 
discussed, whether the ^Jamaica Committee' are 
right in the intention they have expressed of pro- 
secuting Mr. Eyre, should their friends enable 
them to do so, which we believe is not probable, 
as the outlay would not be less than £8,000 or 
£9,000. No doubt it is highly important that 
cruel acts, such as those of Mr. Eyre and his 
subordinates, should be declared illegal by an 
English tribunal, but, unfortunately, there is no 
charge upon which Mr. Eyre can be tried, except 



History of the Jamaica Outhreah 173 

that of " wilful murder," and shameful as his con- 
duct was, few would regard it as amounting to 
deliberate wilful murder. Should Mr. Eyre be 
acquitted — by far the most probable event— -he 
would, in reality, gain a triumph, which, in the 
hands of his injudicious friends at Southampton 
and elsew^here, would more than cancel all the 
good done by his dismissal." 

The subjoined article, which appeared in the 
Solicitors' Journal shortly after the details of the 
Morant Bay proceedings had been published, may 
be regarded as the collective opinion of the Legal 
Profession on the melancholy subject : — 

" We have no intention of expressing any 
opinion on the comparative demerits of the 
various actors in the Jamaica tragedy ; we do not 
know, nor seek to know, whether the blame of 
exciting that unhappy revolt ought to rest on 
Governor Eyre, Dr. Underhill, or George W. 
Gordon ; we are utterly unable to decide whether 
negro insurgents, or white planters, or British 
officers, have most effectually disgraced their 
common humanity. The circumstances will, we 
trust, be made, ere long, the subject of a Par- 
liamentary inquiry, which should be searching in 
its conduct and unsparing in its results. But, 
whatever may be the truth of the questions now 
in dispute, there is not, we hope and believe, any 
division of opinion, at least among lawyers, that 



174 Life of Eon, G. W, Gordon. 

the trial of political prisoners by military courts 
is an evil of greater magnitude than the rebellion 
itself 

" Now, we do not hesitate to assert that in the 
eye of the law, and utterly irrespective of the 
question whether Mr. Gordon did or did not de- 
serve his fate, Brigadier-General ISTelson and the 
ofl&cers who sat on that court-martial, and soldiers 
who carried their sentence into effect, have one 
and all been guilty of wiKul murder. 

" It is not alleged that Mr. Gordon was taken 
with arms in his hands, though even that would 
not justify his trial by court-martial unless he was 
taken in a district which was at that time under 
martial-law ; and, according to English law, a 
military court has no jurisdiction to try a non- 
military subject of the Crown for any offence 
whatever, other than armed resistance to the 
authorities in a proclaimed district. Inter arma 
silent leges, but only when their voice is drowned 
by actual warfare. However just, therefore, the 
sentence upon Mr. Gordon may have been — a 
point upon which we express no opinion — it was 
pronounced by persons who had no authority to 
try him for the offence, and who were therefore 
jpro hac vice a mere voluntary association of private 
individuals. The sentence of such a self-con- 
stituted court had no legal validity, and therefore 
could not justify those who acted in obedience to 



History of the Jamaica Outbreak. 175 

it ; and the act of putting Mr. Gordon to death 
was as much a murder, both in those who ordered 
it and those who obeyed that order, as it would 
be if Brigadier Nelson were to be seized in the 
streets of London, tried by a jury of Baptist 
Ministers at Exeter Hall, and hung from a belfry 
by the order of Sir Morton Peto or Dr. Underhill. 
And this is no light matter : it is, we repeat, of 
more grave import in our eyes that every prin- 
ciple of British law should thus have been set at 
nought by a British Governor and British officers 
(and we have no reason to believe that this is an 
isolated instance), than even the worst of the 
horrible outrages by which, under the pretence of 
warfare, both sides have vied in disgracing the 
very name of man. 

" We sincerely trust that this matter will not 
be suffered to rest here. If Gordon were the most 
atrocious wretch who ever met a merited fate, it 
would not be the less intolerable that he should 
have been hauled over by a British Governor to an 
illegal tribunal, or that he should have been 
murdered under the forms of justice by an un- 
authorized body of self- constituted judges. 

" Let us suppose that the Fenians had risen in 
Cork, and committed there outrages such as their 
predecessors distinguished themselves by in 1641 
(and the worst acts of the Jamaica rebels do not 
come nearly up to this pattern), would that justify 



176 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

Lord Wodehouse were he to sei;d Stephens or 
Luby to Cork to be tried there by court-martial 
instead of bringing them regularly to justice in 
Dublin or elsewhere before the ordinary criminal 
courts of the country ? 

" For conduct such as this Lord Strafford lost 
his head ; for conduct not more illegal tlian this 
Warren Hastings saw his hopes blasted, the just 
reward of his great services lost, and the end of 
a ]ife of toil in his country's cause embittered ; 
and it is not too much to say that conduct such 
as this has (whatever may be the merits or de- 
merits of Mr. Gordon) proved at least this- — that 
the principal actors in this tragedy are unfit to hold 
any office of authority under the British Crown. 

" We do not desire to see Governor Eyre im- 
peached, nor Brigadier Nelson put upon his trial 
for his life, though neither could justly complain 
of such a course ; but we do think that the in- 
tegrity of the law will not have been vindicated 
so long as either the one or the other continues to 
hold her Majesty's commission/' 

JAMAICA'S WOES. 

WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR, ON READING THE FIRST 
ACCOUNTS OF THE "OUTBREAK." 

Alas ! what shrieks of woe I hear ! 
What wailing rends the tropic air 
Which fans the Isle of beauty rare, — 
Gem of the Western Sea ; 



History of the Jamaica Outbreak, 177 

Jamaica bleeds and groans and dies, — 
Slie turns to Britain tearful eyes ; 
And shall we, heedless, hear her cries 
Of dreadful misery ? 

Oh hasten men of God to save, 
The helpless Negro from the brave. 
Who hounds him as a traitor knave, 

With false and vain eclat: — 
The victim's seized by vengeful hands, 
Defenceless, harmless, where he stands ; 
His life the English chief demands, 

In name of martial law. 

Though British blood's in Gordon's veins, 
Although no crime his conduct stains. 
He's doomed to all the shame and pains. 

Of felon dyed with blood ; — 
In vain, with tears, his loving wife 
Implores to spare her husband's life. 
Since he ne'er joined in sanguine strife 

Against the Queen or God. 

While innocent, condemned to die. 
No vengeance kindled in his eye ; 
To Heav'n he raised his fervent cry, 

For mercy on his foes ; 
And when he A^T?ote his last adieu 
To his dear wife, and all he knew, 
To God his ransom'd spirit flew, 

From all his earthly woes. 

His shameful death shall yet be found. 
With glorious halo circled round. 
As was his spotless life renowned, 

For works of faith and love : 

12 



178 Life of Hon. G. F. Gordo7i. 

The palm of vict'ry now lie bears, 
The crown of righteousness he wears ; 
The joys of Paradise he shares, 
With all the hosts above. 

His martyrdoiji let all proclaim ; 
With tearful love embalm his name ; 
Through wide dominions spread his fame, 

Till time shall be no more ; 
Let shame and infamy inclose 
The cursed memory of those, 
Who fiercely 'gainst the guiltless rose 

To horrid deeds of gore. 

Ye British Ladies kind and true, 
The injured Afric trusts to you, 
His cause around the throne to sue, 

Upon your bended knee ; 
Before ye prayed, and not in vain. 
Our Queen to break the bondman's chain ; 
For equity, oh, plead again, 

To Negroes who are free ! 

Ye Englishmen of state and might, 
Your heads, your hearts and hands unite 
Jamaica's laws and wrongs to right ; 

Redeem her from disgrace: 
If not, reproach shall yet be hurl'd 
At you, from all the cultur'd world ; 
And scornful lips shall aye be curled 

Against the Saxon race. 

The appended suggestions for the future 
management of Jamaica, by John Gonie, Esq., 
barrister-at-law, coincide so much with the views 
published by myself on the same subject seven 



i 



History of the Jamaica Outhreak. 179 

years ago, that I shall conclude by substituting 
them for my own, with a few additional para- 
graphs from my little work, entitled " The Slavery 
of Jamaica Freedom, its Curse and its Cure." 
(It is satisfactory to know that we have in Eng- 
land, at this moment, a deputation from the emanci- 
pated people themselves, for the purpose of 
carrying into practical operation some of the 
plans which again and again I had proposed to 
them, before I left the island,) 

"In round numbers, the population of this 
most beautiful island consists of 13,000 whites, 
70,000 coloured, and 350,000 negro inhabitants. 
The latter constitute the peasantry of the 
country, but many pure negroes may be found in 
the ranks of the traders, the small proprietors, 
and even among the professional classes. The 
negroes are sometimes spoken of and regarded as 
if they continued in the position of savages or 
demi-savages, but this view is almost too absurd 
to be combated. They live by labour, or b}^ cul- 
tivating their own fields, they dress respectably, 
they go to market to sell their surplus provisions, 
they own horses and carts and mules, they attend 
church, they speak the English language, they 
sit on juries; in short, if they are savages, it 
would be somewhat difficult to define the exact 
position of the English agricultural labourer, the 
Irish peasant, or tlie Highland crofter. Tlie 



180 Life of Hon. G. F. Gordon. 

Jamaica colonists, from the earliest period, have 
claimed to be regarded as British citizens ; and 
by a statute of George II., c. 1, passed in the 
year 1728, this claim was formally acknow- 
ledged by Parliament. It was declared by that 
Act that all such laws and statutes of England 
as had been at any time esteemed, intro- 
duced, accepted, or received as laws of the island, 
should be and continue laws of Jamaica for ever. 
All the inhabitants not slaves thus acquired and 
continued to enjoy those rights of personal security 
which are guaranteed to English subjects by the 
laws of the realm. Yv^hen the Act of Eman- 
cipation was passed, the slaves at once became 
citizens, the law knowing no distinction of per- 
sons after the slave had been declared no longer a 
chattel, but a man. 

'' In treating of the mode of governing 
Jamaica, the only proper and legal principle upon 
which to proceed is to regard the negroes as 
English citizens equally with the whites, and to 
measure out to them their legal rights with even- 
handed justice. This may seem a very elementary 
principle indeed ; but, elementary as it is, it has 
been systematically disregarded. If Provost- 
Marshal Eamsay had been properly impressed 
with these views, he would not have ventured to 
order George Marshall, a coloured man, for instant 
execution after he had been cruelly flogged ; nor 



History of the Jamaica OuthreaJc. 181 

if these truths had been properly appreciated in - 
her Majesty's navy, would the inhuman sentence 
have been eagerly executed by three English 
sailors belonging to her Majesty's ship ' Wol- 
verine/ and their conduct have remained un- 
questioned and unpunished by their superiors as 
it has been to this hour. 

" The first necessity in all well-governed 
communities is a pure administration of justice ; 
and I would therefore lay it dow^n as the pre- 
liminary step in the improvement of Jamaica, 
that— 

"I. Justice in the petty courts ought to be 
administered by magistrates fit for the office. 

" Unfortunately, the inhabitants of Jamaica 
have hitherto been denied this advantage. The 
justices are planters, managers of estates, book- 
keepers on estates, or traders in the villages en- 
tirely under the influence of the planters. To 
illustrate the character of the magistracy in St. 
Thomas-in-the-East, where the late disturbances 
arose, the following facts may be mentioned, 
which were all proved before the Eoj^al Commis- 
sioners, and the evidence may be found in the 
volume laid before both Houses of Parliament. 
The magistrate who signed- the warrant for the 
apprehension of twenty-five inhabitants of the 
mountain settlement of Stonej^ Gut, in conse- 
quence of their alleged participation in a 



182 Life of Hon. G. F. Gordon, 

petty disturbance, had himself been fined in 
his o\yn court for assault shortly before, and 
it was clear, from the expressions used by the 
people, that contempt for the magistrate had a 
great deal to do with the refusal of the twenty- 
five men to accompany to prison the five police- 
men who were sent to bring them in. Another 
magistrate of the same parish had been dismissed 
from his office before the Commissioners arrived 
for flogging publicly a woman and her daughter 
after martial law had expired, and apparently for 
no other reason than to gratify his own brutality. 
It was proved before the Commissioners that the 
same person stood by and witnessed the slaughter 
of six untried prisoners by a black soldier of one 
of Her Majesty's West India regiments, although 
force enough was at hand to have prevented the 
soldier executing his murderous purpose. A third 
magistrate of the same parish authorized the use 
of whips made of wire and cord intertwined, for the 
flogging of large numbers of people who were only 
hastily tried by himself and many of whom were 
never tried at all. The same magistrate caused 
several men to be flogged with from 100 to 150 
lashes each, with the infernal instrument of tor- 
ture which I have mentioned, before being sent 
down to Morant Bay to be tried for their lives. 
Thus mangled they were tried and hung. A fourth 
magistrate went out house-burning with a party 



< 



History of the Jamaica OuibreaJc, 183 

of constables : a fifth w^as present and made no 
complaint when the soldiers shot a man in his 
own house without tria.1, and afterwards burned 
the house, turning the widow and ten children 
into the woods. A sixth, when challenged for 
flogging a woman after martial law, excused him- 
self by stating that he flogged several and that he 
was vexed. Of the custodes or supreme magis- 
trates of other parishes, one appeared as chief wit- 
ness, and took an active part against one of his 
own parishioners, who was put to death for making 
use of an unmeaning expression months before 
martial laAv ; another proposed to take advantage 
of martial law in a parish one hundred nniles at 
least distant from his own, for the purpose of 
putting down an association of negroes desirous of 
sending their ovvm produce direct to England. It 
is unnecessary to multiply examples of this kind 
to show that the body of the justices who ex- 
pound the lav7 in the petty courts are unfit for 
their position, and this was the opinion of the 
best men in Jamaica itself. 

"The appointment of stipendiary magistrates 
has been objected to because of the expense, but 
the administration of justice is one of the funda- 
mental purposes of government. If we cannot 
spare money to administer justice, we had better 
spare the expense of soldiers to administer martial 
law, and leave the island to the people who pos- 



184 Life of Hon, G, W. Gordon. 

sess it. The few stipendiary magistrates left in 
the island who were originally appointed during 
the apprenticeship system e^ddently enjoy the 
confidence of the people. Only one of them ciil- ^ 
pably involved himself during martial law by 
becomino; the chief of the Maroons, and failing to 
keep them in due subordination. The Govem- 
ment ought to limit the functions of these magis- 
trates strictly to the dispensation of justice. In 
connection with the appointment of a more nume- 
rous body of stipendiary magistrates, Sir Henry 
Storks, the la.te Governor, threw out the excellent 
practical suggestion that courts ought not to be 
fixed at towns and villages remote from the settle- 
ments, but that a system of circuits should be 
established by which justice might be brought 
home, as it were to the whole body of the j)eople. 
Having mentioned the name of the late Governor, 
I cannot avoid expressing my regret that circum- 
stances prevented his remaining in the island, as 
from the perfectly impartial manner in which he 
conducted the business of the Eoyal Commission, 
it was apparent he was the true stamp of admini- 
strator for such a community as that of Jamaica. 

'' Having provided for a pure administration of 
the law, the next duty of the Government ought 
to be — 

" II. To adapt the land laws to the actual con- 
dition of the country, and the changes consequent 



History of the Jamaica Outhreak. 185 

upon the abolition of slavery and the abandon- 
ment of many large estates. 

" It would be impossible within the compass ot 
this paper, to touch upon all the subjects which 
seem to require adjustment. It may be sufficient 
to mention especially the law of trespass. The 
late disturbance, if not solely occasioned by, was 
at least closely connected with, the land laws. 
The proprietor of the estate of Middleton, adjoin- 
ing Stoney Gut, had found himself unable to con- 
tinue its profitable cultivation, and for several 
years the negroes had been left to settle upon it 
very much as they pleased, paying rent for a 
nominal portion, but their lots not being fenced 
in or separated from the rest of the estate. A few 
months before the outbreak, the proprietor, who is 
one of the colonial officials, let the whole estate 
to a respectable negro, who, residing on the spot, 
might be able to make more of the settlers than 
the proprietor himself The principal tenant 
began operations by applying the trespass laws 
to the negroes who had been accustomed for years 
to use the unenclosed pasture lands and planta- 
tions at pleasure. He seized the horse of one of 
the settlers, who in turn rescued his own horse 
when on the way to the pound, and for this he 
was himself prosecuted for trespass before the 
local justices, v/hose character I have already 
described. It is not difficult to realize the ill 



186 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

feeling these injudicious proceedings would pro- 
duce in the negro settlement so long undisturbed, 
and the excitement of the people on the day of 
the trial led to the first trifling disturbance, which 
being most injudiciously dealt with by the magis- 
trates, led directly to the setting of the law at defi- 
ance and the fearful explosion at Morant Bay. It 
is unnecessary to add that the owner of the horse 
and nearly all his neioiibours were executed. 
There is in existence a law of the island provid- 
ing for the forfeiture of lands to the Crown of 
which the land-tax is unpaid for twenty years. 
This does not appear to be put in force, but some- 
thing more is wanted for the regulation of estates 
of which the cultivation has been abandoned by 
the owner, and where communities of persons have 
gradually sprung up claiming rights as purchasers 
from the proprietor or his agents, or by long-con- 
tinued possession, the application of labour to the 
clearing of the bush, and uninterrupted enjo}Tnent 
of their plots of land in the knowledge of the 
owners. The island can never become productive 
if, while the white proprietors abandon estates, 
the negro population are not permitted, under 
fair and judicious laws, to obtain possession of 
these properties for the purpose of bringing them 
into cultivation. 

" III. In the political administration of the 
island the measures of the Government ought to 



History of the Jamaica Oufbreak. 187 

be directed to the material prosperity of all 
classes, and not of tlie dominant class alone. 
Society in Jamaica is composed of very few ele- 
ments, and there are sharp lines of distinction 
which render the w^ork of an administrator not 
without difficulty. The planter, naturally per- 
haps, regards the prosperity of the island as solely 
bound up with the prosperity of the planting 
interests. His desires all run in the groove of 
getting abundance of labour cheap, and selling 
his sugar dear. In fact, the simple creed of the 
days of slavery still sticks to the planters of the 
present day, and when they had the control of 
the Government, they did not scruple to carry 
out a purely planting policy. The negro, on the 
other hand, does not see any perfection of wis- 
dom in working for 9d. or Is. per day on the 
sugar estates when he can be his own master and 
earn more, besides keeping his family comfortably, 
on a few acres of land in the moimtains. The 
desire of the negroes to acquire land is a proof 
of their advancement, and I would stimulate the 
desire and endeavour to gratify it. Such a tax, 
for example, as that upon horses, mules, and wag- 
gons, in a community where there are no public 
conveyances, and where even very small settlers 
find it impossible to convey their produce to 
market without a horse and cart, is not only im- 
jjolitic, it is galling to the people, and can only 



188 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

be productive of evil. The oxen and planting 
stock on an estate are rated much lower than the 
horses and mules of the small settlers. 

"The Colonial Government ought to charge 
itself with the encouragement of the class of 
small freeholders, urging them to produ.ce as 
much as possible from their properties, and to 
introduce from time to time such new products 
as the market of the world seems to require. In 
the ISTorthern States of America — in the State of 
Ohio, for example — it is the duty of a Govern- 
ment ofl&cial to watch the introduction of new 
implements for the saving of labour, to report 
upon the attempts which have been made to in- 
troduce new kinds of grain, or fruit-trees, vines, 
or plants tending to enrich the people, to stimu- 
late competition in the breeding of stock, and 
generally to encourage enterprise without inter- 
fering with the perfect liberty of the people to do 
as they please. If this is found to be beneficial 
in a country where competition is so keen, and 
intelligence so generally diffused as in the 
Northern and "Western States of America, how^ 
much more necessary in a young community, 
composed of a race scarcely thirty years removed 
from slavery. 

'' The main road around the island, so far as I 
saw of it, was in a tolerable state of repair; but 
it was almost destitute of bridges, and the uncer- 



History of tJie Jamaica OuthreaJc. 189 

tainty in travelling thus produced is destructive 
of aU business. When Mr. G-nrney, one of the 
Commissioners, went to Bath and Manchioneal to 
take evidence, it was my duty to accompany him 
as one of the counsel for the Jamaica Conmiittee, 
and on our return the rivers were what is techni- 
cally called ' down/ that is, flooded so as to pre- 
vent communication with Kingston. AYe were 
indebted to the courtesy of Lieutenant Brand for 
enabling us to return to Port Pioyal by the gun- 
boat which he commanded, a mode of conveyance 
which is not open to the inhabitants generally, or, 
when available, not apt to be eagerly taken ad- 
vantage of, so loner as the remembrance of recent 
events is fresh in the minds of the people. The 
new Government have, therefore, to begin with 
pro^uding means of permanent communication 
throughout the island, and I trust they will see 
their way to the sanctioning of some comprehen- 
sive scheme of railway communication. 

" The mode in which the taxes are levied upon 
imports and exports appears to me to want entire 
remodelling. There is actually an export duty 
upon sugar, the staple product of the island 
although the same article has to pay a very liea^w 
import tax in this country. Several articles which 
enter into the ordinary consumption of the people 
are taxed, agricultural implements are taxed, a 
protective policy of the most injudicious kind 



190 Life of Hon. G. W. Gordon. 

reigns supreme. Not only does. this dwarf wlio.t 
may be called the natural commerce of the island^ 
but it entirely prevents Kingston becoming the 
depot of merchandise for the neioiibourins; islands 
and the American continent, which from its posi- 
tion it is so well fitted to become. 

" IV. My last suggestion is that the Home 
Government as a measure of ordinary justice to 
all its sugar growing colonies, as well as to the 
population of the United Kingdom, ought to 
abolish the sugar duties, but the object is one too 
extensive to be more than merely mentioned at 
present. 

" Under wise governors I have no fear of the 
future of Jamaica. The people are anxious to 
improve their condition, and all they need is a 
fair field and just treatment. 

" In the same section of this department, Mr. 
R X. Fowler, Treasurer of the Aborigines' Pro- 
tection Societj", contributed a paper on the treat- 
ment of inferior races by Great Britain. Mr. 
Fowler then summed up the case in his conclud- 
ing remarks : — ' Unhappily, we must confess that 
Great Britain has not shone in her treatment of 
subject races ; and that the Emperor of the 
French, in his wise and just protection of tlie 
Arabs of Algeria, has set us an honourable exam- 
ple, which it is to our disgrace we have not imi- 
tated. The history of British rule too often dis- 



^ 



History of the Jamaica Outhreah, 191 

plays what Lord Macaulay has eloquently called 
''the most affecting of human spectacles, the 
strength of civilization without its mercy." It is 
well worthy the consideration of the Social Science 
Association, whether anything can be done to 
secure the rights and privileges of the natives of 
our different colonies. Their lands should be re- 
spected, and, when required for colonization, 
acquired by purchase, or on fair terms. Proper 
officers should be appointed to look after their 
interests, and so protect them in the enjoyment of 
their rights." 

From " The Slavery of Jamaica Freedom" : — 
" Let England nourish and cherish Jamaica as 
one of her sufferino; members, and not foro-et that 
the black people are but emerging from a state of 
the direst savageism and bondage ; coping with 
difficulties altogether unknown to the free-born 
and cultured descendants of enlightened nations. 
They are, as might be expected, but like children 
at school, in regard to their general knowledge of 
religion and business. They have not had oppor- 
tunity to master the rudiments ; and, consequently, 
require much instruction and encouragement. 
Yet it must be owned, that notwithstanding the 
inherent disabilities arising from their circum- 
stances, they are deprived of the outward essential 
means of improvement enjoyed by British ple- 
beians. Can a woman forget her child ? Yes ; 



192 Life of Hon. 0. W. Gordon. 

the English mother-country does less to nurse, 
educate, stimulate, guide, and protect her sable 
child, than is done for her fair adults after their 
centuries of mature knowledge and experience ! 
But the little fellow is patiently advancing, 
despite of obstacles that would blanch, paralyze, 
and beggar Enghshmen and Scotchmen, and is 
inspiring the good an^ wise with glowing hopes 
respecting the piety, wisdom, wealth, and glory of 
his future career, if only fair play be accorded 
him. Seeing so little confidence can be reposed 
in the colonial institutions, which, in many re- 
spects, are a curse instead of a blessing to the 
emancipated people, their friends must turn their 
hopeful eyes, and lift their interceding voices, to 
their dear old mother for sympathy and succour, 
and proceed to work, as if those institutions were 
non-existent. 

" I propose to establish, if sufficient encourage- 
ment be given, a Poor-house and Orphan School 
for Jamaica, at the town of Chapelton, which is 
salubriously situated in the centre of the island, 
to be under my own immediate inspection, and to 
be supported by voluntary contributions. I wish, 
also, to organize, at the same place, a central 
Agricultural Society, People's Exchange and 
News-room ; a show or exhibition of live-stock, 
field produce, manufactures, improved implements 
of husbandry, &c., to take place half-yearly, and 



History of the Jamaica OuthreaL 193 

suitable prizes to "be distributed to successful 
competitors, which would give a happy impulse, 
as in our own land, to the people's energy and 
ingenuity. In the People's Exchange, lectures 
would be delivered from time to time on me- 
chanics and all useful subjects, especially those 
bearing on the most approved modes of growing 
and managing sugar, coffee, cotton, and the 
general productions of the colony. A supply 
of the best periodicals of the times would be on 
hand, for the entertainment and instruction of 
many persons who can read and are desirous of 
information. The standard weights and mea- 
sures, and the tables of market-prices as published 
from week to week by the Colonial Press, would 
be kept in the Exchange, for the purpose of 
enabling the people to have their merchandize 
properly weighed, measured, and priced before 
disposing of it, so as to protect them from being 
robbed by false balances and other mercenary 
frauds in buying and selling, as it appears, 
from the testimony of the Press, and their oft- 
lamented experience, they have hitherto been. 

"There is no inspection of weights and mea- 
sures, as in England, at least not in the parish of 
Clarendon, nor, that I am aware of, in any part 
of the island : consequently, there is every tempta- 
tion and facility to overreach in all mercantile 
transactions with these simple-minded and de- 

13 



194 Life of Eon. G. W. Gordon. 

feiiceless people. Sometimes the heartless rogue - 
will persuade ^s haj)less victim that he has 
bought his sugar, coffee, &c., at a very high price, 
and sell it again for the home market, at,]perliaps, 
three or four shilKngs j)er cwt. less than he paid 
for it, and still make enormous profits by means 
of his unjust weights and measures, &c. He 
never sells to the black man by the scales used 
in bujTJig from him. He always keeps large 
weights and measures to purchase with, and small 
ones for vending. This is so well known as to 
be a common topic of conversation all over the 
country. The disgTaceful practice could, how- 
ever, be effectually checked by such means as I 
have indicated ; and what a stimulus to the 
enterprize of the emancipated people would the 
sweet assurance give, that they would receive 
current value for the produce of their toil, instead 
of realizing, as it frequently happens, not the half 
of what it is worth ; while on the other hand, 
the full quantity for which they paid (and not 
but the haK or the third of it) would be 
ensured by testing it in the Exchange. Some 
may suppose, that to interfere with such matters 
is not within the range of my province as a mis- 
sionary of Christ; and to such persons I reply, 
that most gladly would I have eschewed all such 
interference, if we had in Clarendon lajonen of 
influence, as may be found at home, interesting 



History of the Jamaica Outlreak. 195 

themselves in the welfare of the working-classes, 
or if the people were so far advanced as to be in 
a position to defend themselves. I have, more- 
over, the example of my Lord and Saviour, of 
Paul, of Knibb, of Livingstone, and a]l the best 
ministers and missionaries, in seeking to benefit 
the bodies as well as the souls of men." 



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